Fake Uzu
by Vahn
Summary: Something has gone terribly wrong at Jusendo. Now de-aged and wanted dead because of a case of mistaken identity, Ranma must learn more about this familiar but strange world. Found by one of the three Legendary Sannin, what impact would the Wild Horse have on the Naruto Universe with a secret hidden in Ranma's own body?
1. Chapter 1

Naruto/Ranma

Naruto Belongs to Masashi Kishimoto

Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

Timeline for Naruto : Latest Manga chapter You been warned!

Special Thanks to Arcanasage and thanks to Azaggthoth for editing this fic! Double AA batteries making this fic right!

Prologue

******* Land of Fire ******

The village of Kurohime was a simple one. Located in the Land of Fire, their main exports were various vegetable goods. After that there, was not much value. Their only odd feature was their larger then normal population, where as most villages had a population of five to ten thousand, Kurohime touted a good thirty thousand citizens and growing.

The reason for this population boom was their proximity to Konoha, the Shinobi village hidden in the leaves. They weren't close by any means but they were at least within the patrol zone of the powerful ninja village and that had kept their town safe from bandits and the likes.

It was here that a girl in tattered rags walked out into the street, her body covered in splotches of blood with nothing on but a ratty looking red shirt of oriental design.

"Oh dear," Sasuki, one of the elderly women of the village, muttered at the sight. She had been out on her morning stroll when the sight of the little girl, no more than six years old, grabbed her attention. She'd been shocked at the sight of the blood.

The other villagers were giving the girl a wide berth, hoping that ignoring the problem would make it go away. Meanwhile the girl in question appeared to be looking at their village in wide eye awe, as if she had never seen a village before.

Still, Sasuki was never one to let a child suffer like this and so approached the girl and kindly said. "Hello dear, are you okay? Are you hurt?"

The child, upon closer inspection, was a dirty looking little girl who's bright red hair was still distinguishable despite her condition. However when Sasuki made eye contact with the child she was taken off guard as a set of deep blue eyes turned to meet her own questioningly. A puzzled, "Wha?" was all the girl managed.

Sasuki had seen a lot of things in her long life, she was one of the few lucky enough to live as long as she had. She still remembered Konoha's alliance with the Land of Whirlpools. Two of the traits that were dominant among all of their kinsmen were bright red hair and blue eyes. The same traits this little girl had. "It can't be..." She whispered in doubt before shaking her head and giving the child a gentle smile. "Are you hungry dear?"

As if in answer to her question, the little girl's stomach growled loudly. "Ah heh heh heh," The little girl laughed, embarrassed. She blushed red to match her hair.

A few minutes later, Sasuki was all but convinced that the girl was Whirlpool village survivor. Another one of the primary traits that she remembered from the Whirlpool clansmen was their voracious appetite. The little girl for all her size had eaten more than her body weight and then some.

"Thanks Lady!" The blood covered redhead said gratefully as she downed her seventh bowl of Ramen.

"My pleasure," Sasuki said warmly before thinking of a delicate way to approach the subject. "If you don't mind my asking," she started slowly, "where are your parents?"

The little girl froze at the question and looked sadly down at her bowl. "They... they're somewhere where I can't reach them." The girl replied somberly before being surprised when the older woman hugged her gently.

"It'll be okay young one, Konoha will take good care of you I promise," Sasuki murmured in gentle reassurance before letting the girl go. She would have to send a letter to the local Shinobi village, they owed Uzu after all; and the Hokage, Hiruzen, was a good man. He would make sure this girl was taken care of.

"Leaf Village?" The red hair girl asked confused.

"The strongest Shinobi village in the land," The old woman said proudly and saw the little girl snort ruefully at her statement.

"Ninjas?" The little girl muttered to herself.

"Would you like to stay with me for the time being? I don't know what happened to you but you could use the bath at least," Sasuki offered kindly, taking the girl out of her musing and redirecting the dirty girl's attention back to her.

The little girl thought about it for a few moments before nodding. "Thank you."

"Well, since you will be staying with me for a while, mind if I ask you what your name is? Mine is Sasuki Oga." Sasuki introduced herself as she held out her hand to the redhead.

The little girl seemed to look pensive for a while before bowing low. "My name is Ranma Saotome, sorry about this..."

"Ranma?" Sasuki asked surprised. Clearly a very male name. "In that case it is nice to meet you Ranma Saotome."

++++ Ranma, Several Hours Later +++++

Ranma looked at her little girl body and frowned. She'd had a hot bath drawn for her but the instant her body touched the water it turned lukewarm. Sighing, she scrubbed off the rest of the blood and dirt from her body.

It wasn't hers by any means; she had been wandering in that damnable forest for the past week, eating nothing but indigenous wildlife for food. Heck she even used a wolf's pelt for an impromptu blanket during the night but had discarded it shortly after she saw the village. She hadn't wanted to scare the normal people after all... that was until she saw the village, it's people and their dress style.

Ranma's first reaction had been that she had somehow traveled into the past. She'd heard from one of her cousins, Kagome, that she had traveled back to the past from time to time. However, everything felt slightly off as if she was looking at a parody of ancient Japan.

Then the old lady had approached her and offered her food and if there was one thing Ranma Saotome never does, it's turn down food. Unless, of course, it was made by Akane. However for right now she was stuck as a girl for the foreseeable future, not because she was locked. Nope, it's because what was inside of her now...

Of course Ranma only consolation for the entire thing was that Herb's gambit paid off and that her family was safe. Akane got the water before Saffron transformed into his phoenix form and started to pull a Godzilla in the Jusenkyo valley.

"Stupid overgrown chicken," Ranma grumbled to herself. Still she somberly recalled Herb's sacrifice and bowed her head in respectful silence.

"Are you done dearie?" Sasuki asked from the door.

"Yes ma'am," Ranma replied politely as she got out from the bathtub and toweled herself off. The moment she exited the bathroom the old lady had clapped her hands together.

"My Word! You're going to be a real heart breaker when you grow up," Sasuki gushed as she took a good look at the formerly filthy girl that had exited her bath. The girl, Ranma, had more hair then Sasuki thought and it cascaded beautifully mid way down her back. Her skin, which had been smeared with dirt and blood, was now revealed to be beautifully white giving her a dainty look.

And her eyes, those eyes now shone beautifully with the red mane on her head making her down right adorable. Surprisingly to Saukui, the girl looked a bit distressed at her comment.

"R-right... heart breaker..." Ranma said with a sick look on her face. Her? With boys? Yeah right.

"Oh you might not like boys now but when you grow up you'll want a husband all of your own," Sasuki said with an indulgent smile. The girl was obviously still in the 'I hate boys' stage.

Ranma could only smile politely as this lady was the one that fed and clothed her. She must not lose her temper.

"Well, how about dinner?" Sasuki asked still seeing the girl's ill look and watched as it transformed into a big smile at the thought of food. _'Just like an Uzu.'_

****** Konoha, A few days later *****

Hiruzen was busy dealing with the fallout from the Uchiha clan annihilation. It was bad business but it had to be done. He now had to show that Konoha was stronger than ever with the loss of their founding member clan. That meant more Shinobi had to be sent away so they could flex their muscles, in a manner of speaking.

Taking a puff from his pipe it was then he noticed a letter, marked urgent, from one of the local Shinobi commanders on station in Kurohime village. Picking up the letter, Hiruzen Sarutobi the Third Hokage of Konoha, read it's content and his eyes widened.

Though known as the God of Shinobi, he had always felt ashamed of Konoha's role in Uzu's destruction... or, it should be said, inaction. That was why he was happy when Kushina came. Though she was given special treatment by most of the council elders because of her Jinichuriki status, he still doted on her because she was from Uzu. Now years after her death there was apparently another Uzu survivor and a little six year old girl at that. Where had the girl come from however? Was she really an Uzu? The local commander appeared to think so as she presented their most obvious traits. Still, better to have the girl brought here.

Glancing back down again, Hiruzen's wizened face frowned at the report given by the local who found her. The girl had been found, covered in dirt and blood, and had said that her parents were no longer alive. The child had refused to talk about anything regarding her past, not that Hiruzen could blame her. She probably saw her parents get killed in front of her.

Still this could be good news. Once this girl, Ranma, got here it should make the council a bit happier having an old bloodline for them to cultivate. After all, most clans could benefit from the vitality that all Uzu seemed to possess.

Of course, it wouldn't hurt that maybe Naruto could have a playmate his age who was technically a fellow clansmen.

***** Kurohime Village, a week later ****

Ranma, dressed in a short blue kimono decorated with a floral pattern that left her legs slightly exposed, was a bit nervous when she saw the cat masked woman and dog masked man standing before her. She could sense them looking at her. Something was going on that involved her.

"Now dear don't be nervous, they won't hurt you," Sasuki said comfortingly to the little girl she had grown to love in the short amount of time they spent together. Ranma had insisted on helping out with everything as a way to say thank you.

Ranma wanted to retort that she was not SCARED of the two figures and that, if anything, it was the damn cat mask that was off putting.

Apparently Ranma's unease did not go unnoticed and it was the cat masked woman who knelt down. "Don't worry, we're not here to hurt you," She said in a kind voice, "Where we're taking you is the safest place in the country. You'll never have to worry about getting hurt again."

"I'm not scared of you!" Ranma shot back immediately and sensed the amusement from the white haired dog masked man and the cat woman. They were treating her like a kid! And, damn it, couldn't the woman take off that stupid cat mask already?

"Whatever you say Uzu-hime," The Dog mask man said flatly before turning to the woman and giving her some money. "Your reward."

Ranma looked on in shock, thinking she had been sold out, only to see as Sasuki pushed the money back into the dog mask man's hand. "Oh no, give it to her instead." She said looking at the red haired girl.

Surprised once more by the old woman's kindness, Ranma was left speechless as the cat masked woman placed a hand on Ranma's shoulder and nudged her along.

Looking at the kindly old woman once more, Ranma bowed to her before she left with the two masked Konoha shinobi.

The three companions walked in silence, which was just fine with Ranma, as she tried to get a bead on the two figures. Raking her knowledge of ninjas in general, she tried to compare what she knew with what she was seeing before her.

The two figure in front of her were powerful. Not as strong as she was when she was normal, Ranma mused cockily, but respectable in their own right. However it was their ki signature that felt all wrong, as if it was... corrupted.

Then again this was not the first time Ranma felt the corruption of ki. She swore everyone that she had encountered so far had a dark taint on them, on their ki. It was... odd.

"You have really pretty hair," The cat masked woman said, obviously trying to make conversation with the redhead after two hours of silence.

Ranma was taken out of her thoughts at the ca-creature masked woman's comment. The old woman had refused to let Ranma bundle her hair back up together into a pig tail and instead had let it fall in curls all around her back. After a week Ranma hardly gave it thought anymore. Besides, she only needed the dragon whisker when she was a he... which looked like it wouldn't be for a while until... well... she'd get there when she'd get there.

"Thank you, Sasuki-san did it for me," Ranma replied politely and leaned toward the man with the dog mask more, surprising both of the masked ninjas.

"She does not seem to like you much Cat," Dog said as he noticed the girl had visibly tensed earlier when Cat had addressed her and when Cat touched Ranma's shoulder. Now, once again, Ranma had that same startled expression when Cat talked to her. As far as Dog knew Cat was as kind as could be to children, yet this little girl was wary of her.

Cat actually looked a bit dejected, well as much as one could with a cloak hood and a mask covering their face.

"It..." Ranma started seeing the woman monster look give off a very visibly depression aura. "It's not you... it's your... mask."

"My mask?" Cat asked startled when the girl suddenly addressed her. "What about it?"

Ranma debated whether or not to tell 'Cat' but decided she should and hopefully convince the woman to take it off for the rest of this journey. "I don't like c-ca-caaaaaa- feline things..." She finished.

Dog looked at Cat, who looked over at him sharing the same surprised look. Most children loved cats but the girl's reaction to just a mask was troubling.

To Dog's surprise Cat took off her mask, revealing her face to the redhead girl, and smiled. "There how about now, am I still... troubling?" She asked.

Ranma was surprised that underneath that monstrous mask was pretty dark purple haired girl in her teens. Her smile appeared friendly and she looked quite anxious for her answer.

"Cat, you know we are not supposed to take off the mask!" Dog said harshly.

"Well then it'll be our secret won't it?" Unmasked Cat said, winking at Ranma.

"Well, I ain't no snitch," Ranma replied, feeling much more comfortable around the girl now. So much so that she did not realize she had walked up to unmasked cat of her own volition.

Pretty soon unmasked cat was fawning all over Ranma's hair and the cute, if loose fitting, clothes that she was wearing thanks to Sasuki dressing her up.

Dog, for some odd reason, felt a bit miffed that he was now excluded from the conversation.

++++ Later that Night ++++

After the party of three made camp and Ranma had inquired more about this Konoha place, they rested. It was just as Ranma was about to get some shut eye that her danger senses warned her of hostile killing intent nearby. Opening her eyes immediately, Ranma saw Cat put her mask back on, with Dog looking warily around.

"She's awake," Dog said to Cat who turned to look at the little girl.

"Oh hello," Cat said bending down and looking at Ranma, trying to comfort her. "Everything going to be alright, don't be afraid."

Ranma looked offended but reluctantly nodded along, what could she say? She was currently in no position to help fend off the group of fifteen strong corrupted ki signature coming their way.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Konoha's lap dogs," A gruff voice sounded out as an imposing figure dropped down from the tree in front of the two Ninjas. "I heard an interesting rumor, is it true you have an Uzu brat with you?"

Dog got into a battle ready position while Cat looked at Dog. "I believe you were mistaken," Dog said in a flat tone of voice.

"Oh I don't think so, at least that's not what the letter to the Hokage implied. It's too bad, I had been on my way to kill her at that village but now that she's here... I guess killing you two would be an added bonus!" The big man gloated as more merc-nins started to appear from the woods, surrounding the group.

"So, who are you?" Dog asked the big man with a sword strapped to his back.

"Zabuza Momochi," The giant man stated, grinning as he pulled out his sword. "I will be getting paid quite handsomely for this."

Dog stiffened at the name, as did Cat, before they both fell into battle ready stances. Dog, however, shouted as loud as he could to the surrounding area. "Run! Run and don't Look back!"

Ranma cursed her weak, young body but knew that there was little she could do. Already in this new land people wanted her dead. Par for the course. Silently she ran from the battlefield, leaving the other two ninja by themselves.

Tactically it might seem like a cowardly thing to do but if they were not weighed down with concern about protecting her then they could escape easily. The truth of the matter was that Ranma was a liability, so she did the only thing that would give them all the best chance to live. She ran for it.

Already Ranma could hear the sound of battle as she moved quickly and stealthily. She sensed at least seven presences tailing her and smirked. Sure, as she was, Ranma knew she was in no shape to fight them off. However there was skills in her arsenal that didn't need her to be her old super-powered self.

Killing her emotion, she mentally blend into the Umi-sen-ken and felt her pursuers pull up short, confused.

"Where did she go?" One of the men asked.

"I don't know! It's like she just disappeared!" Another voice answered, clearly perplexed.

Ranma continued to stealthily move through the forest, not even leaving footprints, as she got further and further away from her pursers.

She did not stop until it was morning and even then Ranma still stayed within the Umi-sen-ken. There was no way she could go back to that village now. The guy pretty much said he was going to Kurohime to find her and she couldn't go back to the other two because she didn't know where they were...

'Well... looks like it's going to be wild game for a while then.' Ranma lamented to herself.

***** 2 Weeks Later ****

Once again, Ranma found herself on the edge of a village. It appeared to be almost as crowded as Kurohime however, unlike the previous village, there was a big casino at the center of the city. What pulled her up short was the fact that the Casino was being advertised with florescent neon lights.

This place, or world, land, whatever... was weird. The people lived in simple villages that could be found in ancient Japan but then they had big neon lights and electricity advertising their casino. Still, she didn't want to get to close to the village. Her once tidy hair was now a mess, so much so that she had bundled it back up into a pig tail to keep it from falling in her face.

The once nice, clean clothes that the old lady Sasuki given her were little more than dirty rags at this point. Sure she tried to clean them when she could but the fact of the matter was the need to hunt the wild life and stalking the untamed woods. It was simply too much stress on civilian clothes that were never meant to put up with that sort of punishment.

It was then that she noticed a little pink baby pig sniffing her ankle as she watched from the woods. The pig itself had a nice little bow tied around its neck signifying that it definitely belonged to somebody.

Still, Ranma had only eaten wild pigs up to now and contrary to popular belief, they were gamey. This pig looked like the nice domesticated kind. Which meant good eating as far as Ranma's concerned.

"Here Ryoga, Ryoga, Ryoga," Ranma said in a friendly, saccharine voice.

The pink little piglet, hearing the sweet call, happily bounded over to the red haired girl only to black out a little later.

Grinning ear to ear, Ranma picked up the pig by its bow and nodded after she knocked it out with a pretty strong punch. "Hmmm, now what would go well with you little guy?" She questioned as she tucked the pig underneath her arms and walked away, not noticing that she had been spotted by a few local children.

++++ Casino ++++

"And don't ever come back until you settle up, SLUG princess!" A man in a stripe yellow business suit with a cigar in his mouth barked angrily at the big busted pale blond woman before him.

"You should be lucky a Sannin would deem fit to visit your Casino!" Tsunade, Medical Nin extraordinaire, veteran of the third shinobi war and one of the legendary Sannin of Konoha shot back just as angrily.

"Sure I would be, if they had MONEY!" The gangsta man shot back. "And until you settle up with me, I am going to make sure you won't be welcome into any other Casino in the Land of fire!"

"You monster!" Tsunade accused in shock as the Casino door was slammed rudely in front of her.

"Tsunade!" Shizune, apprentice to the legendary medic nin, shouted in a distressed voice.

The pale blonde woman sighed as she no doubt was about to get another lecture from the short brown haired girl. What was she, her care taker? "Yes Shizune?" Tsunade asked. Best to get it over with.

"Have you seen Tonton?" Shizune said looking around frantically. "She wasn't with you was she? I only took my eyes off of her for a second!"

Tsunade blinked and hmm'ed. "No I thought she was with you," She told the younger girl. "Beside it's a little baby piglet how far could it have gone?"

"I don't know!" Shizune wailed in clear distressed. "She was just here with me, I mean just right here!" She said pointing at the spot next to her.

"Hmmm, excuse me but did you say you were looking for a piglet?" A little boy, no more than six, asked the distressed brown haired medic-nin.

"Yes!" Shizune replied immediately. "Where is she? Where did you see her? Can you take me to her?"

"Uhh..." The younger boy said sweating a bit. "A girl took it into the forest." He said pointing in the direction of the forest.

"Girl?" Shizune asked confused and looked at the boy. "Do you know her? What does she look like?"

The boy cupped his chin as if in deep thought. "She was dirty looking, might be homeless. But she had the reddest hair I've ever seen and nice blue eyes." He replied after giving it some serious thought.

"We'll could you point to us which way the girl went?" Tsunade asked the little boy who stared wide-eyed at her sizable bust. "My eyes up here brat."

"Oh uh, in the forest," The boy said still unable to tear his eyes away from the big titted blond's... well, tits!

"Let's go get your pig Shizune," Tsunade said as she crossed her arms across her breasts denying the little Jiraiya his view.

"You're coming with me?" Shizune asked surprised. A small girl was something she could easily handle, there was no need for a Sannin.

"Might as well, Casino kicked me out, got nothing better to do," Tsunade said before marching off into the forest where the little boy had pointed.

+++++ In the forest ++++

Ranma had 'acquired' a pot that was now sitting over some fire. A tied up pink piglet was struggling next to her. Ignoring the little critter's plight, Ranma chopped up some onion looking things, potato looking things and other stuff into the pot.

"Alright buddy! Time for you to feed me!" Ranma said cheerfully as she grabbed the struggling piglet to toss him into the pot.

"Hey! What do you think you are doing to Tonton?!" An outrage voice demanded.

Ranma cursed her carelessness. She was so busy preparing food that two decently high level people were now on top of her. Turning around, Ranma's eyes bugged out as she saw the huge breasted pale blond in simple ancient style clothing. There was big and then there's BIG, now apparently there was another size.

The person next to the top heavy blond looked about Kasumi's age but her expression was anything but Kasumi-like as she glared at Ranma just as she was about to put the pig inside the boiling pot.

_'Shit, must be the pig's owners, think quick!'_ Ranma mused to herself as the pale haired blonde appeared to be looking at her in surprise. "Uhh... here!" She said and tossed the pig at the less endowed woman before running away.

Attempting to focus, Ranma tried to embrace the Umisenken but the hunger pain was distracting her too much for her to focus on the technique. Still what happened next surprised her as, before Ranma knew it, she felt a powerful presence had closed in on her and grabbed her by the scruff of her collar.

Reacting instinctively Ranma's fist punched at a pressure point on the offender's wrist, forcing them to release her. Rolling away immediately, Ranma dashed into the forest, zig-zagging to try to make her attacker lose her trail. She was surprised to find that she could sense an overpowering presence right behind her every step of the way.

"Are we really doing this brat?" A voice said in a casual, almost amused tone.

Ranma turned to see that it was the top heavy blonde that was running behind her with her arms outstretched, imitating an airplane's wingspan and easily matching pace with her. Needless to say Ranma was a bit surprised at how effortless the woman made it look.

"I can do this all day," Tsunade said wryly as she matched her stride to be next to the little redhead. For some odd reason the little girl, her defiant attitude and her fiery mane reminded her of another redhead she once had the pleasure of knowing.

"Yeah, well, you'd probably look stupid all day doing it." Ranma retorted as she looked for a way to shake off of the woman. Seeing an area of dense foliage with narrow trees, Ranma ran into the patch confident that it would stall the woman.

To Ranma's complete surprise the blond continued running directly through the trees, not even batting an eye as she bulldozed her way directly behind her. That was almost Ryoga-like, Ranma instantly compared as the pale blonde continued to break the trees in her way. Amazingly enough, she did not suffer any drop in speed.

"Well then I guess we'd end this little merry chase now," Tsunade said with a smirk before speeding up and plucking the redhead by the scruff of her shirt again, only to be surprised when the girl slipped out of it and continued to run stark naked. Well, one thing that the little girl did not have in common with Kushina was her apparent lack of shame as the girl was darting into the forest buck naked. "Come back here and put this back on!" Honestly, didn't the girl have any modesty?!

"Help! A pervert's trying to molest me!" Ranma shouted hoping for someone, anyone, would head her cry and delay the big breasted bimbo.

"Shut up brat!" Tsunade growled as she speed up once more. She aimed to grab the girl by her neck but was surprised when the little brat sensed her attack and ducked under it. Then with agility that should not have been available at her age, the squirt ran up to a tree and jump onto it. She then expertly used it to spring board to cover more grounds in the forest.

"Nyah Nyah!" A naked Ranma taunted as she weaved through the trees, jumping back and forth while being sure to keep up same momentum. Still she was never one to leave insult without injury, so in one of her springing motions she slapped her behind and pull down her eye lid at the big titted blond.

"Oh you little shit!" Tsunade growled as a tick mark formed on her forehead. That brat was DEAD the moment she got her hands on the girl. Still it was amazing how the brat was keeping up the pace. A regular six year old should not be able to do this at all... unless their name was Itachi, Tsunade amended. Everyone knew about THAT prodigy. But then Itachi had the ancient Uchiha bloodline to draw from, what did this little brat have?

"Kiss my ass ya dummy~~~~~" Ranma drew out until she spring-boarded off her last tree. She found herself clearing the forest and apparently over a very deep cliff. "Oh shit."

"Brat!" Tsunade said as she saw the tiny girl's figure falling to, what she assumed, was her death. "Damn it, You'll owe me brat!"

"AHHHHHHHHHH!" Ranma shouted as she started to fall and comically flap her arms as if they were wings. After a moment she remembered she was a Saotome, aerial techniques were what they did! Still, Ranma had expended a lot of ki in trying to lose the pursuing blond and wasn't sure if she had enough to cushion her fall.

_'Damn, might have a broken leg or two after this_,' Ranma thought to herself as she curled up into a ball and channeled her ki to her legs to distribute her weight on impact. What happened next however surprised Ranma, when she felt someone embraced her in mid-air causing her to panic; surely that blond woman wasn't crazy enough to follow her off a cliff!

"Don't wiggle around so much brat, I got you," Tsunade assured as she flipped at the last second, to land gracefully with the red haired brat tucked under her arm.

Blinking at the skilled landing, Ranma actually clapped in admiration before the woman let her go and grabbed her by her neck. "Gah!" Ranma grunted as she tried to pry the woman's hand off her neck but it proved to be futile. "Let go of me ya old hag!" She shouted as she continued to try to struggle and wiggle out of the big breasted bimbo's grip.

Tsunade had a little tick develop as she heard the girl's comment. "O-old hag?! What old hag do you know looks like me?!" She said offended.

"Only old hags are this strong!" Ranma retorted as she still struggled to free herself. That was when she felt the woman sit down and before Ranma knew it her body was stretched across the woman lap and she found herself looking at the ground. "Wha?"

**SMACK!**

"OW!" Ranma shouted. Did that bimbo just smack her ass?!

**SMACK!**

"OW! HEY CUT IT OUT!" Ranma shouted angrily. Those hits stung her ass something fierce.

"You are a potty mouthed little girl who needs to learn a lesson in manners," Tsunade said in a tone that brooked no argument as she brought her hand down onto the girl's bottom again.

**SMACK!**

"Ow! Hey! Cut it out you crazy bi-"

**SMACK**!

"Arghhh! You Pedo-"

**SMACK**!

"AHHH! Stupid big breast BI-"

**SMACK**!

"ITEEE! You Whor-"

**SMACK**!

"ARGH- You du-"

**SMACK**!

"YOW! Okay You cra-"

**SMACK**!

Now Ranma may not have been very smart in some area but she was smart enough to realize when she was beat. At least for now. Simply put, her body in its current condition couldn't stand up to this extremely powerful woman and the spanking that she was receiving was starting to sting like a bitch. So for now, it was time for her to us the Anything Goes style most fearsome technique to get her out of this situation.

"Okay! Alright Already! I'm sorry! Please forgive me!" Ranma pleaded as she executed the _Crouch of the Wild Tiger_ to perfection, her bent over position showing her submission. Why, there were even watery tears in her eyes.

The legendary Sannin stopped her disciplinary action when she heard the redhead's sincere plea. "Good." She said satisfied. "So am I an old hag?"

"No ma'am." Ranma replied exhausted from her ordeal.

"Am I a stupid big breasted bimbo?"

"No ma'am." Ranma replied, again, swallowing her pride for now.

"Will you be running off your potty mouth to me again?"

"No Ma'am." Ranma said in defeat.

"Good," Tsunade said satisfied. She then stood up and placed the girl on her feet. "You will be coming with me got it?" She asked.

"Yes Ma'am." Ranma said too tired to care. Already Ranma was plotting payback in her mind. Once she was strong enough at least but for now, best to just go along with everything.

"Now let's get you something to eat," Tsunade said kindly. Normally she wouldn't take in strays but this girl. That red hair and those bright eyes, so similar to Kushina in her attitude. Judging the by the state the little redhead was in, she probably had horrible things happen to her.

Ranma had to blink at the pale blonde woman's offer. "Really?" She asked in disbelief. She thought she was going to be tortured or something, not get fed. Well that changed everything.

"'Fraid not little one," said a familiar voice that Ranma recognized as it echoed around them. A moment later a scruffy haired man with a bundle strapped to his back revealed himself.

"You!" Ranma accused after recognizing the man, Zambini or something, from the ambush weeks ago.

Tsunade, however, narrowed her eyes as she felt the various presences all around her. Instinctively she tucked the little girl closer to her.

"I have no quarrel with you, I just want the little girl," The scruffy haired man with the big sword stated.

"And what could a powerful merc-nin want with a little girl like this?" Tsunade asked darkly, not intimidated in the least by the man.

"What I do with the little Uzu princess is my business," Zabuza said as he signaled the other merc-nin to get in position. It was a pity to kill such a nice looking big breasted woman but money was money. "I am giving you this one last chance, hand her over and you'll live."

Ranma saw the exotic pale blond woman look at her with an odd unreadable look before she turned back to the Zucchini guy.

"Since you were so generous, I feel that I should give you fair warning," Tsunade said calmly. "Leave or else you'll regret it."

Scoffing at the woman's bravado Zabuza unsheathed his famous blade, Kubikiribocho. "Do you know who I am? I am Zabuza of the Mist," Zabuza proclaimed loudly. "And it is unfortunate that you did not take my offer when you had the chance."

At his announcement multiple merc-nins emerged from the shadows, all radiating killing intent. Though some had lust in their eyes as they leered at the blond woman's chest. To their surprise, a moment later the woman laughed throatily.

"Ah, one of the 'famous' swordsman of the mist." Tsunade grinned as she cracked her knuckles. "Good, I wouldn't want this to be too easy. After all, you _are_ facing Tsunade Senju."

Zabuza's eyes widened. The other merc-nin froze in mid step, their killing aura wavering. Everyone had heard of the legendary sage of Konoha. Taking a better look at the woman, he matched it with the known profile of the lengendary nin and cursed himself for his carelessness. Despite his ability, he wasn't even sure if he could take on a sage. Even with all these merc-nin as fodder and judging his nin-for-hire, they looked uncertain also.

"Well," Tsunade added punctuation as she smashed a thick tree trunk next to her into splinters effortlessly, "which one of you do I have to pleasure of breaking apart first?"

"Forget it! I'm out of here!" A merc said as he turned tailed and ran. That triggered the cascading effect as the other merc-nin started to make a run for it, leaving only the Swordman of the Mist and the Legendary Sage facing each other.

"Bah!" Zabuza said as re-sheathed his sword. "They didn't pay me enough to fight a sage."

"Oh, are you sure?" Tsunade asked playfully of the swordman. "I am, after all, only a woman." She smiled when she saw the swordsman snort.

"It was an honor meeting you Senju-hime," Zabuza said to Tsunade and surprised her when he bowed respectfully to her before leaving.

Ranma however looked at the blond woman feeling a bit of trepidation, this woman made those guys back off and run away. Gulping, she started to feel nervous as to what horrors would now await her with this woman.

++++ Later that Night ++++

Ranma lay awake as she listened to the two women snore on either side of her. Technically, now that she was fed and no longer as hungry, she could blend in with the Umisenken and escape. Yet something held her back from doing so.

Looking to her left Ranma looked at the brown haired girl with the piglet in her arms sleeping soundly. To her right was the pale blond who was facing her, snoring lightly. From the way they were able to sleep here in the wilderness, Ranma figure that these women were wanderers of some kind.

When Ranma saw the brown haired owner of the pig again, she thought she was going to get a beating at least. To Ranma's surprise, the girl had introduced herself as Shizune and ended up treating her very kindly. In fact, her kindness reminded Ranma of Sasuki-san.

"Mmmm, don't even think of escaping brat..." Tsunade mumbled in her sleep as she rolled onto her back.

That surprised the redhead as she stared at the sleeping profile of the big breasted woman who had introduced herself as Tsunade. Whoever this woman was she was apparently famous or feared enough to get the hunters to back off and Ranma knew those hunters were not weak fighters. Ranma also swore they called the blond a princess but then again, the 'Zebra' guy also called Ranma a princess... so maybe he was being sarcastic?

Still, with both women asleep, all it would take for Ranma to escape would be to use the Umisenken and she could be gone before this woman could react. Yet, Ranma had to admit she was sick of being alone and Tsunade seemed intent on keeping Ranma by her side. Besides, Tsunade had proven to be very strong. Much stronger then the two masked people that had escorted her a couple of weeks ago.

Maybe, just maybe, she'd accompany them for a bit longer Ranma decided. Just to see where things went, of course, she could leave any time after all. Closing her eyes Ranma let herself fall into a slumber, for once able to drop her guard to get some real rest.

The moment Ranma fell asleep was the moment a slug with blue and white stripes crawled on top of Tsunade neck and whispered. "She's asleep Tsunade-hime."

Tsunade cracked an eye open to stare at the tiny redhead then smiled as she realized she wouldn't have to keep an eye on the strangely named girl anymore. Who'd name their daughter Ranma?

The girl in question was a stray in every sense of the word, yet Tsunade could also see that there was a certain exuberant spirit about her; much like Kushina. Had the girl ran, Tsunade would have tied the girl up but thankfully she didn't have to. That meant progress has been made, no matter how miniscule.

Tsunade had debated about whether or not if she should send the redhead to Konoha but then that would mean she would actually have to go back to Konoha. Tsunade was pretty sure the only person able to escort the girl safety to that village would be herself after Ranma told her about her previous Anbu guards. Still, that was something she just wasn't ready to do. After all, she didn't want to set foot in that forsaken place any more.

Briefly Tsunade thought of Naruto, who was under the care of the two perverts. She couldn't be in the village to watch over him but maybe out here she could take care of another Uzu survivor.

A light snore let Tsunade know the little redhead was now in deep slumber, letting down her guard and making the medical sage smile.

"Goodnight brat," Tsunade whispered and then after a moment snuggled closer to redhead, for warmth of course, it wasn't that she wanted to protect the little girl or anything. Yeah that was it.

TBC.

Author Note : Well why do a Ranma/Naruto fic? Well, a right of passage of sort? Everyone done one so I figure now is my turn to try my hand at it. Yes there is a lot of unanswered question but that is my writing style as I will revealed it when it's right. Most however will be revealed in the next chapter along with some new impact on the Naruto verse.

My reason, I seen how powerful Sakura gotten with only two years of training under Tsunade, I want to see what would happen with Ranma if given that opportunity. Thanks to Kaztar for inspiring me for the major plot point of being mistaken for an Uzu :D I told you I was going to use it!

Special thanks to the Temples guys and girls for help me fact check Naruto aspect.

Anyway up Next: Ranma life with Tsunade and Shizune.

As for grammars, me and Arcanasage do the best we can but if anyone think they can do better, please feel free to PM me if you are available to help :D

As always C+C Welcomed Reviews Appreciated!

Special Request: I don't have a cover art for this, if someone is nice enough to splice something together I'd appreciate it :D


	2. Chapter 2

Naruto/Ranma

Naruto Belongs to Masashi Kishimoto

Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

Special Thanks to Arcanasage and thanks to Azaggthoth for editing this fic! Double AA batteries making this fic right and readable if not for them...well you know how it goes.

Prologue 2

**** Bayankala Mountain range ****

A loud primal cry echoed throughout the entire valley as a giant, fiery phoenix made itself known by wreaking havoc in the area. Steams of flame fired from it's mouth and scorched the surrounding land.

Ranma, holding both the Gekkaja and the Kinjakan in his hands, looked on and for once was at a loss on what to do. The battle worn martial artist didn't know how but he had a feeling that this was his fault somehow. He was pretty sure he was the reason Saffron turned into a kaiju like monster.

After Akane's revival she, along with Shampoo, made for the Amazon's village; from there they should be making their way out of the valley as the giant flaming bird set fire to the Jusenkyo valley.

"Saotome?!" A familiar noble voice prompted from behind the pigtailed boy making him turned around in surprise. "What are you doing here?!"

"Herb?" Ranma said surprised then he realized, of course the Dragon prince would be here. This was his home. Still, now Ranma had an ally that could help him figure out what to do against Saffron's bird form thingy.

Herb came to stand by the pig tailed boy that had bested him in combat and gave him an imperious look until he saw what was in said boy's hands. "How did you get your hands on those?" He asked darkly pointing to the two elemental staffs.

"These?" Ranma said not recognizing the dark tone in the prince's voice. "Picked em up when Saffron turned into that thing." He said pointing at the giant fire bird.

"What did you do Saotome?" Herb growled darkly, his ki radiating off of him as if matching his angry mood. "What did you do to the Phoenix Beast Jinchuriki?!"

That was when Ranma had an inkling, judging from Herb's tone, that this might have been a lot more serious then he thought. Of course, that was when the giant fire-bird saw the assembled Musk warriors and fired a stream of flame at them.

+++ Land of Fire, Unknown Location +++

Ranma woke up from the dream, sweating heavily as she recalled the beginning of what she now thought of as her end. Looking down at her clothes, she frowned at them once more. The women had taken to dressing her up in those cute stylish half kimono type things, exposing her legs, that she'd seen the children from the villages they passed by wore. They even went so far as to tie a big frigging bow behind her back with her obi, saying that it made her look adorable.

Ranma Saotome, adorable!

When Ranma had asked for pants she was refused, on grounds that it was easier for her to move in. Stupid kimono, at least they were able to get her a red and blue colored one.

"Good morning Ranma-chan!" Shizune greeted as she also woke up and stretched out her arms with a great big yawn before turning to look at the small red head in concern. "Did you have a bad dream again?"

"Ah, it's nothing Shizune," Ranma said, waving off her companion's concern. Last thing she needed was to be mothered this early in the morning. The little redhead made to get up only to feel a pair of strong arms wrap around her and pull her back down. "Ack! Tsunade! Your breasts, they're going to crush me!"

True enough the sleepy, slightly drunk form of the legendary Sannin had now grabbed the smaller red head and hugged her tightly between her bosom. Now while most men and even some women would kill to be in that position, Ranma's body was still that of a six year old. Not to mention Ranma had always been smaller than other children her supposed age and so found herself suffocating under the twin mounds of doom.

"AHHH! Tsunade-sama!" Shizune cried in panic as she saw as the small girl struggled briefly between her mistress's breasts before her tiny arms fell limp. "Wake up, you're killing Ranma-chan!"

Tsunade's eyes snapped alert as she heard the words 'killing Ranma-chan'. Springing up into a battle ready stance, she searched around for any hostile presence but found none. "Geez Shizune, there's nobody out there." She lectured before looking around for the smaller red head. "Umm... where is Ranma?"

Shizune pointed down at the legendary Sannin's chest and saw the well endowed blond look down at the unconscious redheaded girl crushed between her breasts.

"Ahhh! Ranma-chan!" Tsunade shouted in alarm as she peeled the girl off from her heavenly valley.

The apprentice to the Slug Princess had to smile at her mentor's antics. Tsunade had warmed up to the girl a lot quicker than Shizune thought possible. The little red head's personality was just so confrontational and should have clashed with that of Tsunade but slowly yet surely, the two's banter became common place as each took a perverse sense of joy from it. Shizune had witnessed her mentor warming up Ranma despite her own effort to stay aloof. Why, any talks of trying to find a suitable orphanage hadn't even been privately discussed with her in the past few weeks.

As a medic-nin Shizune was more than aware of why Tsunade was wandering around aimlessly. She knew that, despite her mentor's attitude, she was suffering from a severe case of depression and opted to cope with it via withdrawal from by Konoha blaming the village for her pain. Having Ranma around forced her Sensei to interact with someone that was completely outside her circle of trust and so far it was already showing results.

Maybe having Ranma around was just what Tsunade needed.

A few minutes later, Ranma-chan was glaring at an abashed looking Sannin. "Seriously, I'm gonna sleep on Shizune's side from now on." She told the contrite looking blonde.

"Awww! That's not fair!" Tsunade whined and gave the smaller red head a pleading look.

"Tough cookies!" Ranma said glaring at the woman. "At least Shizune won't be able to kill me with her breasts!"

Shizune blushed in embarrassment at the younger girl's comment on her smaller assets. Compared to other girls the brown haired medic-nin might be considered big but compared to her teacher, she might as well been an A cup.

"But it's sooo~ HOT and you feel so good!" Tsunade whined. She had noticed that despite the summer heat, Ranma was always giving off a slightly cooler aura. It might have something to do with her bloodline in particular or what the Uzu were known for. Still, it made the heat so much more bearable. Despite her pleas the little girl was vindictive and shook little head no.

Tsunade, thinking quickly, grinned slyly as she thought of a suitable bribe. "If you'll forgive me I'll teach you something new?" She grinned as she saw that got the little redhead's attention.

Ranma's eyes suddenly widened and then looked suspiciously at the big breasted blonde. "Really?" She asked the legendary Sannin and saw the woman nod eagerly.

During the past three months that Ranma had been traveling with the two, she found out a lot about them. Tsunade was like a female version of her dad but only in the sense that she loved gambling, drinking and was kind of irresponsible with money. Unlike her dad however, Tsunade had never stolen, sold her off or treated people unkindly... at least those that didn't deserve it. So to Ranma, in a way, Tsunade was irresponsibly responsible. It also helped that Shizune was there to reign in the Sannin before her antics got out of hand.

Tsunade in turn found out that Ranma had incredible vitality just like the Uzu bloodline but was surprised when, after a medical exam, had discovered the girl did not have a single trace of chakra in her system. Truth be told every living thing had chakra, that was the most basic principle she'd learned as a medic nin. The little girl shouldn't even be alive!

Concerned, Tsunade started to teach Ranma the most basic tenant of molding chakra and to her surprise the little girl looked a bit sick every time she had to mold it. Eventually however the girl got used to it. That, however, was the extent of Tsunade's teaching so far because she already had a student in Shizune. Throwing Ranma a bone here wasn't a big deal. After all, it wasn't like the girl was some prodigy. She had never seen the girl show any physical aptitude for the Shinobi life style thus far, though her sneaking skill were interesting it wasn't enough. One needed to be physically gifted along with proficient in chakra manipulation to be even considered a Shinobi candidate.

The chase through the forest initially? Tsunade chalked that up to adrenaline, being a medic-nin she knew just how superhuman adrenaline could temporarily make you. Since then, the girl hadn't shown any similar feats.

Ranma herself initially did not care much for ninja skills because, based on her experience, they did not mesh well with her fighting style. To plan, plot, sneak under the cover of darkness and then attack an opponent from behind was not her style. Well, some of it was but Ranma much preferred the face to face type of combat.

So the young girl had been glad when Tsunade and Shizune went off to train in secret, leaving her alone for a few hours. That gave Ranma the opportunity to practice her Anything Goes skills away from prying eyes and to get herself back into shape.

Of course, in her spare, time Ranma tried to mold this physical energy thingy to create the tainted thing they called chakra. Ranma had started to get a good grasp of it's concept when she realized the physical energy literally came from the physical world while the spirit energy came from within and was otherwise known as her ki.

This world, Ranma noted, actually thrummed with a different power then her own world. Everything had some kind of saturation of power to it that made it feel heavier. However that was not the main problem for her, the main problem was that when she created this 'chakra' the energy felt wrong to her on so many levels. As if her ki was transformed into something it wasn't supposed to be and that disturbed her.

Ranma had just been about to give up on the whole endeavor all together and stick with good ole fashioned ki. It wasn't until one day, on a whim, that Ranma decided to follow the two for their 'secret' training intending to tease the two that she out ninja'ed the ninja.

What Ranma saw there blew her mind. Not just the techniques they used but the way they utilized chakra.

If what Ranma's two companions told her was true, the ninjas of this world used chakra in this way almost on a daily basis. While Ranma was more than confident in her ability to handle this new world she found herself in, learning how to counter these ninja's moves couldn't hurt. After seeing the two women's' feats, a corner of Ranma's mind questioned if she could really classified them as ninja anymore.

So Ranma had dropped her Umisenken and revealed herself which shocked both women as they had not even senses the little red head. Another thing that Ranma had learned was that if she labeled anything a family secret it would generally stop all of Tsunade and Shizune's questioning.

Still when Ranma learned about what chakra could actually do and was shown practical examples of it. The potential of it all was staggering and a lot more destructive then what she normally faced.

Needing to arm herself with the skill-set and ability to deal with it. So, Ranma pestered Tsunade to teach her but the blond refused on grounds of having a student already. Of course, Ranma being Ranma, she'd done her best to learn from what she saw but the fact of the matter was that if she did not get real teaching she would be flying blind.

Which brought Ranma back to Tsunade's offer. The woman still refused to teach her but when one taught a new move, one would have to teach the basics and from there maybe Ranma could analyze how other techniques worked.

"Okay, it's a deal." Ranma agreed after giving Tsunade's offer some thought.

Tsunade grinned, as what she was going to teach her little companion should keep her occupied for years at least!

An hour later and it was a very surprised Tsunade looking on as Ranma mastered tree walking within a few minutes of being shown. Then, to her further shock, the girl had been able to attempt the water walking exercise after a few minutes of trying. Of course that was not to say that Ranma was walking on water well, the red head's face showed great concentration as she took tentative steps over the the surface of the nearby lake.

If Tsunade did not know any better, she would have said that the girl was able to grasp the principle behind the technique and all she needed to do now was apply it via trial and error.

"WAHHH!" Ranma shouted as she plunked down into the water and broke the surface a moment later before swimming to shore with her tiny arms.

"You tried too much too soon," Tsunade told the redhead as the she made her way out of the small lake. True, Ranma had been molding her chakra coils for the past few months but without having any natural chakra to begin with, her reserve were smaller than most.

"Che," Ranma complained as she dragged herself out of the lake before falling flat down onto her face. "Stupid tiny reserves." She grumbled. She knew the reason why she'd fallen; she'd run out of chakra which was the energy needed for her to support herself over water.

"Well if you keep at it pretty soon you would be able to do it pretty easily," Shizune, with little Tonton in her arms, told the disappointed red head encouragingly.

"Of course I will!" Ranma said confidently as she rolled onto her back and stared at the sky. "I'm gonna master this sucker in no time just you wait and see!"

Tsunade had to crack a smile at that. The little redhead's confident attitude reminded her of another similar redhead with her resolve. "Sure sure, keep molding chakra and you MIGHT make a half decent ninja someday." She teased the little girl.

Ranma however snorted at the woman's comment. "Who said I ever wanted to be a Ninja? I'd rather be a martial artist." She countered.

"First, it's called Taijutsu Expert, get it right! Secondly you would actually need to KNOW some Taijutsu in the first place." Tsunade lectured the girl. "Honestly, learn the classifications of shinobi at least!"

"Pff, well ain't no body teaching me," Ranma shot back before getting back up again and, to both women's amusement, sat in a meditative position. Settling down, she started to do the charka molding seals with a look of intense concentration on the little girl's face. "Ox... Rooster... Boar... Dragon..."

Nodding, Tsunade and Shizune left the girl alone as they went back to their own training for the day. It was time for the sage to teach her apprentice about all the more exotic type of poisons found only in this area. Strong enough to put down even the hardiest of shinobi, while at the same time being the strongest anesthetic if mixed correctly.

++++ Later that Evening ++++

Tsunade and Shizune, who had left hours ago, finally returned with their basket filled to the brim with exotic plants.

"And if you chew it and keep it sealed on the inside of your cheek you can spit it out at a moment's notice. The trigger, of course, would be up to you," Tsunade lectured her apprentice who was nodding. "Make sure to be vary careful when applying it though, you don't want to end up paralyzing yourself."

"Hai Sensei," Shizune replied as she burned the knowledge into her mind to experiment with later.

"Now this little bad boy will sell for quite a high price once we do a bit of refinement, I am thinking capsule form." Tsunade said with a grin. She was thinking of the new gambling money she'd have and all for plucking some plants in the wilderness.

"T-tsunade-sama..." Shizune said in a strained voice, of course gambling was her main motivator.

"Hey, I taught you stuff so it wasn't all for me!" Tsunade defended herself before looking around for her little redheaded hellion only to find her still in the same exact position by the edge of the lake.

"Is she still molding her chakra?" Shizune said in genuine surprise. Usually children of the shinobi villages weren't that diligent. In fact only the bloodline families would force their children to train that diligently which was the reason for the gap between civilians and the nobles of Konoha when they finally went to Shinobi School.

Shrugging her shoulders, Tsunade lay down her haul and set about setting up a camp fire. They weren't near any villages today so camping out was their only option.

An hour later when dinner was prepared Shizune looked over at the still occupied girl and called for her. "Ranma, dinner's ready."

To Shizune's surprise, who knew the little girl had a voracious appetite, the girl still sat in the same position. Her hand still doing the seals as she was taught, her lips mumbling it's incantation.

"Hey brat, food!" Tsunade yelled when she still saw the redhead was unresponsive, her hand still set on its task.

Taking a pebble from the fire Tsunade bounced it on her hand a few times before smirking evilly as she flicked the rock at the little girl's head.

To both the sage and her student's surprise the redhead tilted her head aside slightly allowing the pebble miss her by a sliver. As if nothing happened the little girl continued to performed the molding motions.

Narrowing her eyes, Tsunade took several pebbles and threw them toward the redhead faster this time.

Ranma sensed the multiple attacks homing in on her and let out a frustrated breath as she was forced to stop her practice. Turning only her upper body slightly around and flashing out with one hand she intercepted all the tiny pebbles. Holding them between her fingers she showed them off to her blond attacker.

"Blehh!" Ranma said as she pulled down her eyelid at the legendary sage before spreading her fingers wider letting the caught projectiles fall right next to her.

"Wow," Shizune said blinking having never seen her little child companion exhibit any sort of skill like that before. Once Tsunade had tamed the girl she was for all intent and purpose docile, not verbally of course but there had been no attempt at running away. "Those are really good reflexes."

Tsunade cocked her head to the side studying the little red headed girl as if trying to determine something. "Hey brat," She said as she scooped up another a handful of tiny pebbles form nearby. "Catch."

Ranma turned around as she saw dozens of projectiles headed toward her and was forced to stand up to duck, weave, dodge and bat some of them away. Unfortunately, many of them were able to get through her defense and tagged her leaving, stinging welts where they struck.

A moment later the barrage, ended much to Ranma's surprise and relief. Still, she decided to stop practice for the day. Clearly they wanted her to join them for dinner.

Tsunade looked at the little redhead as she approached the campfire, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Itadakimasu," Ranma said politely as she began to chow down on what she liked to call 'Wild's Soup'.

Looking over at Shizune, Tsunade beckoned her apprentice over and she started to whisper conspiratorially to her apprentice.

Ranma sweat dropped when she saw the two women huddled up talking to one another while glancing at her from the corner of her eye. It was a few minutes after nodding to each other that they turned back to face her.

"Okay Ranma," Tsunade said nonchalantly looking at her fingernails with a bored expression. "I have decided to generously allow you to become a probationary student. Want to brat?"

"What? Really?" Ranma asked shocked. The woman had been adamant about not teaching her anything, so why now? "Why?"

"I have to admit," Tsunade said after a few thoughtful seconds. "You might have some skill, no matter how miniscule, and it would be a shame to not see just how far you could go with some guidance."

"Really?!" Ranma asked incredulously again. She had been bugging Tsunade about it for the past couple of weeks but received a firm no each time.

"Yes, really," Tsunade said with an amused smile. "So what's your answer brat?"

Eyes widening at the offer, Ranma grinned. "Well I ain't gonna say no!" She retorted as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Who knew, maybe she could refine her anything goes even further with these two women training her.

"Of course Shizune is your senpai, so you'll have to listen to her AND show the proper respect." Tsunade said giving Ranma a stern teacher-like glare.

"Let's get along well together Ranma-chan," Shizune said smiling at the little girl.

"Hey, I ain't got no problem with that Shizune-Senpai," Ranma responded eagerly, showing proper decorum. Finally, real training from capable teachers in this world but then Tsunade held up a hand. "Yeah?"

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Tsunade asked smirking, then smiled even wider when she saw the little girl's confused look.

"Umm..." Ranma raked her brains but couldn't come up with anything, what did Tsunade want? "Okay, I give up."

Smugly Tsunade stood tall in front of the redhead, towering over her. With her arms folded across her impressive bust line, the slug princess looked down upon the little girl with an imperiously. "You forgot to bow to your master to make it official Ranma-chan."

"Urk!" Ranma replied but since this was ancient Japan-ish, she knew they used to do it like this back in her own home country. So she prostrated herself in submission to Tsunade as respectfully as she could.

At that point Shizune couldn't hold her laughter in anymore and laughed hard only to be joined a second later by Tsunade.

Ranma head shot up and looked from the Shizune to Tsunade before narrowing her eyes at the busty woman. She'd just been hazed! "Tsunade no baka!"

TBC

A/N: What? Jinchuriki? What? Phoenix beast? HUh! What's going on Vahn?! If that is is your reaction then I have done my job as a writer as all will be revealed within the next couple of chapters. As you can see from the title, we are still in the prologue phase before the nitty gritty action.

On another note: I dunno what that outfit Ranma was wearing is exactly called but if anyone seen No game No life, it's the same type of outfit Izuna the animal girl wears.

As for chakra don't read it if you don't want it spoiled but now that we know what it is and what it has been revealed to be in naruto then I just did my own take on it. Might piss of some purist might even make some people who's only watching the anime scratch their head but Chakra was not what we thought it was, it's not natural.

Again questions will be asked, people might say this or that is impossible, but all will be revealed :D

Once again thank you for reading and if you find stuff grammatically wrong feel free to volunteer to help with this fic as Arcanasage have done the best he can and for free no less!

As always C+C welcomed reviews appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

Naruto/Ranma

Naruto Belongs to Masashi Kishimoto

Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

Special Thanks to Arcanasage and thanks to Azaggthoth for once again cleaning up this chapter, going above and beyond as editors!

Prologue 3

****Jusendo****

"Hiryuu Shoten Ha!" Twin voices cried out as the stream of flame from the phoenix beast homed in on them.

Ranma and Herb turned to look at one another; they were both surprised at the others quick reaction, even as their ki converted the giant phoenix beast's ki into wind creating twin tornados as a shield against it's attack.

Herb nodded to Ranma in a gesture of respect before looking back at the kaiju-phoenix. "This will only buy us a reprieve for a few minutes at best. Now, tell me WHAT HAPPENED here!" He demanded.

Ranma didn't care for Herb's tone but he wasn't going to be like Ryoga and be pig-headed about it. Herb might know the answer to what went wrong and why Saffron did what he did.

"Well, all I know is that some bird people kidnapped Akane and made a spring in Jusenkyo from her," Ranma growled darkly. In order to make a spring one actually had to DROWN the person. Sure she was alive now but the thought of them killing Akane still get his blood boiling.

"What did you do to earn the Phoenix tribe's ire?" Herb asked looking Ranma face as if trying to ferret the truth from his features alone. "They do not attack without provocation."

"Well they sure as hell attacked me and I didn't do shit to em!" Ranma said growling. "AND they put Akane's life in danger again!"

"Enough about the girl, tell me what happened to the Jinchuriki!" Herb said cutting off Ranma's tirade about Akane and evil bird people.

"The Jin what?" Ranma said confused but brushed it off. "As for Saffron, I killed him. I didn't want to but he forced my hand!"

Herb looked at Ranma sharply from his tone; there was a hint of remorse in there, as if the pigtailed boy had never taken a life before. "That should be impossible even with my great strength. I wouldn't had been able to kill him, his regenerative ability grants him immortality." He said firmly.

Ranma raised his eye brow at the Musk Prince, the boy was not cocky at all, he was just stating a fact. "Well I did, it wasn't easy but I did it." He said look back as another flash of red hammered into the two tornadoes in front of them, only to be absorbed as fuel to maintain the 'shield'.

"How?" Herb said incredulously then looked at the stave's in Ranma's hand. "Even with the Gekkaja it would only imprison him at most and the Hiryuu Shoten Ha would be ineffective." Ranma looked over to where Herb was pointing as he'd said that and saw the giant red bird. It had grown tired of attacking the whirlwinds in vain and turned it's attention away from the twin Hiryuu Shoten Ha barrier to resume it's attack on the valley. "There is nothing in this world that should be able to kill the Jinchuriki."

"I don't know what this Jin-thingy is but..." Ranma trailed off remembering his final blow against Saffron. Deserve it or not, it left a bad taste in his mouth that he had to resort to it. "I tore him apart and that's how he died."

"Tore him apart how?" Herb asked as he cupped his chin pondering Ranma's statement. "Even if you had ripped him limb from limb he would have just regenerated, that should not have broken the seals."

"As in I tore him apart," Ranma said through gritted teeth. Seeing someone, even an asshole like Saffron, shredded as if put in a blender was NOT something he'd wish to brag about. Still, Herb was looking at him with confusion plain on his face and if the information could help then he'll just have to deal with it. "I did a variation on the Hiryuu Shoten Ha using ice shards and then shredded him. I didn't tear him apart limb from limb, I ground him up like beef, to little shreds."

Herb's eyes widened, looking at Ranma both in awe and in horror. Even he had never thought to use the Hiryuu Shoten Ha in such a manner and he couldn't even begin to figure out how. Not for the first time Herb wondered how he would have fared against Ranma had he gone after him with killing intent back at Mount Horai instead of trying to knock him out.

Mint and Lime, who were with Herb, also looked at the pigtailed boy in awe before gulping and taking an involuntarily step back.

"Satisfied?" Ranma asked bitterly as he looked at the kaiju smashing against the Phoenix Tribe's home before setting it aflame.

Still keeping his eyes on Ranma, Herb nodded. If what Ranma said was true; something like that, an attack of that magnitude WOULD break the seals. Which meant...

"Lord Herb," A feminine voice said from above.

Ranma face shot up and got in a defensive stance immediately upon recognizing Kiima. "You!" He growled. That was the girl that had drowned Akane.

Kiima however raised her hand in a gesture of surrender. "Though my quarrels with you are many, right now we are all dead unless we can bring back Lord Saffron."

"That is impossible," Herb said looking at the retainer of the Phoenix Lord. "Lord Saffron is now completely overwhelmed and consumed by the beast. There is no hope for him."

"No, it can't be!" Kiima said not wanting to believe the lord she dedicated herself to was dead.

"It is done," Herb said with a hint of finality. "Where is your back up?"

Kiima upon hearing Herb's question turned away and looked ashamed. "I was supposed to be the backup but..." She trailed off as Herb glared hard at her.

"Then you should have notified us or the Amazons!" Herb said harshly making the bird-woman flinch at his tone. "You broke the TREATY!"

"We could never have anticipated that Lord Saffron would have ever been defeated much less killed..." Kiima defended lamely as she looked away.

"Okay, I'm lost. And not to ruin this moment but there's like a big friggin Kaiju still wreaking havoc out there," Ranma said pointing over at the phoenix bird who was making it's way back over to them. It was looking angry as it set everything in it's path aflame.

"Mint!" Herb said startling the wolf pelt looking boy. "Go back to the citadel and call for my backup. That is our only chance now."

"Yes Herb!" Mint said and with great speed darted off into the forest.

Kiima however looked alarmed. "You can't! The Phoenix beast was our-"

"You have failed!" Herb shouted at the bird girl. "In your failure, your kind forfeited the guardianship of the phoenix beast when you grew complacent."

"Uhhh, still lost here," Ranma said as he saw pointing to his face. Looking out at the valley he saw the fire bird was making it's way closer to their position again. "And that overcooked chicken's heading this way..."

"Give me the Kinjakan," Herb said holding out his outstretch hand. "With your Soul of Ice technique you should be able to use the Gekkaja sparingly."

"Okay," Ranma said before nodding and handing over the Kinjakan to the Musk prince. He knew about his soul of ice but Herb using the fire staff? "You sure you can use that?"

"More so than you. After all, my beast protects me from the heat," Herb said as she gave the fire staff a few experimental swings.

"Your... beast?" Ranma asked even more confused than ever.

"Yes," Herb said before touching his abdomen. "I too am a Jinchuriki."

Suddenly Ranma's eyes widened as he realized what they mean by jinchuri-something. "You're pregnant!" He shouted pointing at where Herb was touching his abdomen.

Despite the immediate danger from the phoenix beast, despite the urgency and drama that had played out with Kiima, Herb face faulted in incredulity from Ranma's comment.

**** 3 years later ****

"Soo damn cold!" Tsunade complained as she was shivering, despite being covered in a thick fur coat. "Damn it Shizune, when is it my turn with Ranma-chan?!"

"Not for another hour master," Shizune said happily as she snuggled the red head closer to her body some more.

Ranma just groaned as she had to deal with the sizable pair of breast from her senpai being pressed obnoxiously into the back of her head. Three years. Three years she had been with these two women and they were still the same as before, treating her like a cuddle toy! Her only consolation was she no longer had to wear the girly kimino. Instead she was now dressed much like Tsunade minus the happi; unfortunately they got her a pink colored one with narutomaki designs on it. Why pink? Because 'it matched her hair'... god damn pink!

Currently the three had been on their way to the Land of Snow because Tsunade had been temporarily banned from the Land of Fire's gambling dens. Who knew that the criminals would stick together in regards to the Legendary Sucker?

For some odd reason Ranma's body, as if in reaction to the cold, changed. Rather than keeping cool it started to warm up, protecting the girl from the oppressive cold. In fact, she didn't even need to wear a coat like her Sensei and Senpai. When the women had found out that Ranma became a mobile heater they decided to take turns and they passed her back and forth between them for warmth.

Ranma had a sneaking suspicion that this had something to do with what Herb did to her.

Tsunade, however, chalked it up to an Uzu bloodline trait. She had long ago explained to the little redhead that she was a Whirlpool survivor.

During the intervening years Ranma had attempted to correct the two women on the issue of her gender. The result of that was actually having Tsunade give her an impromptu biology lesson by giving her a physical and explaining in DETAIL what each of her part do and WHY it proved she was a girl. Ranma still shuddered in horror of having learned, in that much detail, about the difference between males and females. As a result she decided to drop the issue for a while.

Grumbling, Ranma knew that she would show them one day, that was for sure. Her past however, was none of their business and they most likely wouldn't believe her anyway. Still, if they wanted to keep on thinking she was an Uzu survivor then so be it, it would make it simpler for her to integrate.

"Buu~ You're so nice and warm Ranma-sama," A tiny pink and white striped slug said right next to Ranma's neck.

"I concur Atsuko-chan," A tiny blue and white striped slug on the other side of Ranma's neck.

"How could you abandon me Katsuyuu!" Tsunade said miserably as she shivered out in the cold alone and looking very pitiful.

"I would never abandon you Tsunade-hime," Katsuyuu answered gently as she rubbed her head against Ranma's cheek. "You know I wouldn't be able to survive without Ranma-hime's warmth."

"Bah!" Tsunade scoffed. Technically Katsuyuu was there to make sure Ranma was okay, Ranma's own slug summon had been out and about, also ready to heal the girl in a heart beat if her new ability to stay warm was some fluke.

"I've already told you two! Stop calling me Hime Katsuyuu, and you Atsuko, stop adding sama to my name." Ranma snapped tiredly. From her posture, one could tell that this was not the first time she had this exchange with the two gastropods.

"Of course Ranma-hime," Katsuyuu replied as politely as possible.

"Oh~! Not a problem Ranma-sama!" Atsuko replied happily.

"I give up," Ranma said finally in a flat tone and hung her head dejectedly.

An hour later and it was Shizune hugging Tonton for warmth while Tsunade had mashed the young red haired girl to her bosom. That was the place that needed the most warmth in her opinion. Now that Ranma had grown taller and bigger, at least there were no longer any worries of Tsunade killing her via suffocation.

"Ahhh, Ranma! You're so warm and your skin is soft and silky!" Tsunade said happily as she snuggled, rubbing her cheeks against the redhead's own.

"Uhh... you're kind sounding a bit pedophile-ish there sensei," Ranma said flatly at her mentor's tone.

"Mmmm if you stay this warm I might not care," Tsunade replied as she now had Ranma's warmth all to herself.

Sighing Ranma accepted her fate for now and let the Sannin continue to hug her. She had to admit to herself, learning medical jutsu from Tsunade was an eye opener. While she could perform it, she would never use it on herself unless she absolutely had to. Her ki itself was good enough for that. However aside from Ninjtsu studies she was finding that fuinjutsu was really helpful. Especially the seals to hold things in scrolls. Important things, things like food and... more food! Essential things like that.

Unfortunately Ranma's aptitude in the sealing arts only further reenforced Tsunade's insistence that she was an Uzu survivor. Even using her Anything Goes skills in hand to hand was attributed, once more, to being an Uzu clansmen.

While Ranma didn't mind the mistaken identity they had acted like if one weren't part of a blood line that they would be lesser for it. She'd found out later from Shizune that that was how Shinobi generally thought of bloodline traits and that anyone with a bloodline were highly prized among most of the hidden villages.

That had begun Ranma's impromptu lesson about the various known bloodline clans. It was a lesson that had left her shocked. Ranma had assumed incorrectly that the bloodline traits Tsunade had been talking about were like in Japan, merely nobles marrying one another and calling themselves better then commoners.

Apparently, in this world, a blood line was in fact a real actual boost in power or ability.

First Ranma learned about Konoha's bloodlines; the village she apparently belonged to now thanks to Tsunade inducting her as her student.

People that could talk to dogs?

People that use bugs and can order them to spy?

People that could take over others' minds?

Even people that could see your chakra energy and even copy your skills with one viewing?

What kind of bullshit cheating ability was that?!

Next Ranma had been educated about the other villages and their known bloodline abilities. Water controllers? Sand controllers? Mist controllers? Fire controllers? Wind controllers?! What was this? Avatar the last air bender?! Ranma had seen the series before and to her it was just as similar.

Then there were the ones with the physical traits. Things like tough skin, bones as weapons, animal like traits... the list went on and on. Thanks to Tsunade being a medical ninja she was able to break down the biology and traits for Ranma to learn.

At first Ranma had scoffed at being what was called a medic-nin. To Ranma a medic-nin didn't sound like the fighting type but after learning from Tsunade, she'd realized a medic-nin could be one of the deadliest enemies another shinobi could face due to their intimate knowledge of a shinobi's body.

Ranma later found out that Tsunade's great strength came from her bloodline but her Taijutsu, Ninjutsu and Genjutsu were all of her own ability. That made Ranma respect her that much more.

Unfortunately the one ability that Ranma had yet been able to master, one that she really wanted to learn, was genjustu. She did not know why but try as she might, Ranma couldn't create any illusions. Her only consolation was that direct illusion type attacks did not work on her. She could be fooled into to seeing a hamster as a rock but when trying to turn her into said rock or trap her into an illusion, it simply felt as if it grabbed hold of her for a second before being burnt away.

Tsunade said Ranma should be thankful for having such an immunity and lamented that she wouldn't be able to teach her second student some of the better Genjutsu moves like disguising herself. Which was the real reason why Ranma had wanted that skill set. To be able to create an illusion of her male body would have been a god send but it had been three years and she still showed no aptitude for it.

"Tsunade-sama," Shizune said as she pulled up abruptly and looked around alert.

Ranma had also stiffened when she felt several presences moving towards their position.

Tsunade was already aware of the guests headed their way.

Judging by the way the group was moving in order to encircle them during the blizzard, Ranma knew that these weren't passersby.

Still, they knew exactly how to deal with these kinds of stragglers. Ranma had also learned that this world was a brutal, dog eat dog kind of world. You either die or you live. It was just her luck that she was found by Tsunade, who had yet to kill anyone on their journey but Ranma knew that one day she herself would have to kill. After all, she wasn't stupid. Shizune's poison abilities were obviously meant to be lethal while all the technique Tsunade was teaching her were all killing moves.

Suddenly the bandits sprung their trap and surrounded the group.

"Alright, hand over all your valuables if you want to live!" The Bandit shouted in a demanding voice, a katana in his hand pointing at the trio.

Already other fur coated bandits had made a loose circle around the trio of woman. Some of them leering after the older two with unconcealed lust.

"Oh! Can I take them out please?" Ranma asked from between Tsunade's bosom. Fighting these bandits would be a good practice of her skills.

"There's like eight of them, you think you can handle them runt?" Tsunade asked. She had taken to calling Ranma runt when she noticed that the girl was shorter than other girls her own age.

"Just wait until I turn back into a guy," Ranma grumbled under her breath. She was a bit sensitive about her height, her only consolation was she knew how tall she was in her male form. "Ain't no runt then... harrumph."

"You say something?" Tsunade asked not hearing what Ranma had said due to the noise from the blowing wind.

"I said I'm sure I can!" Ranma replied confidently, eyeing the bandits.

"Hmm," Tsunade said musing. The eight looked weak and Ranma did need field experience. "Okay, they're all yours." A moment later, much to Tsunade's disappointment, Ranma's warmth left her.

"Okay, you want our money?" Ranma said looking at the confused bandits, who witnessed their whole exchange. "Come take it of you can."

"Get them!" The bandit leader yelled as all the men rushed the two grown woman, the leader himself running toward Ranma.

"Arggh!" Ranma shouted in frustration. They were all supposed to fight her! Didn't they know the rules?!

"Yer gonna fetch a good price wench!" The bandit leader said menacingly as he swung the flat of his blade at the little girl, hoping to knock her out. To his surprise the little girl rushed into his guard and the next thing he knew there was an explosion of light in his eyes.

Kneeing the man in the face, Ranma grabbed the man's hood and yanked down on it hard. After making him fall forward onto the snow she followed up with a set of hand signs. Quickly, she touched the snow on either side of the man.

"Koori seihonsuru No Jutsu!" Ranma shouted as she infused her charka into the snow, making it jump up and pile itself onto the man's torso, before it hardened into ice to create an impromptu binding.

"You done already brat?" Tsunade asked as she sat on one of the defeated bandits with Shizune doing the same.

"God damn it!" Ranma pouted as she looked up to see the other seven bandits had been defeated with ease. She wanted to test out other jutsu and this would have been her best chance.

"Awww, it's okay maybe another time," Tsunade said with a sympathetic nod. It was not her fault the men did not view the little slip of a girl as a bigger threat then the two adults with her. "Now come, jump into my bosom, I need your warmth Ranma-chan."

Shizune watched with confusion on her face when Ranma broke down in a fit of laughter, holding her stomach. She was pointing at Tsunade and saying something about a "reverse Happosai" before doubling over in laughter again, kneeling in the snow and thumped her fist against the ground repeatedly.

Tsunade just looked at the redhead strangely; she swore, the smallest things set the girl off laughing. In fact there was that one time she wanted to name a little black pig they found P-chan only to have the redhead laughed every single time she saw the black pig. The little red head's giggling got so annoying that she ordered Shizune to release the black pig back into the wild.

++++ Kakura Town ++++

"Ahhhh a hot spring is the best!" Shizune moaned as she dipped herself in the indoor oasis. Looking over to her sensei she saw Tsunade, once again, arguing with Ranma to prevent her from escaping and join them in the hot springs. They knew that the redhead's body would affect the spring temperature around her and make it warm instead of hot but even a warm spring was better than a cold one.

"I told you, you really shouldn't try to make me bathe with you, I'm a guy damn it!" Ranma protested and saw the other ladies in the bathroom smile at the antics of the struggling naked red headed child, being pulled by her ankle by the busty blond.

"Yeah, you're a boy alright." Tsunade said before she hauled Ranma up by the ankle not unlike holding a caught fish. "A TOMboy!" She said with a smirk as she tossed the indignantly screaming redhead into the hot spring.

"HUAAAH!" Ranma gasped as she broke the water surface and looked around, blushing a deep red. Why? Because there were lots of naked young women and girls looking at her with indulgent smiles.

"See, I told you, it's fine!" Tsunade said exasperatedly. Truthfully the first time Ranma had told her she was really a boy, the legendary Sannin had believed her. However after using her strongest Kai to break the Genjutsu she realized the girl was probably raised AS a boy. Perhaps to throw off her scent to her hunters.

Ranma, to both Tsunade and Shizune's embarrassment, covered both her eyes and faced the water. "Cut it out!" Tsunade demanded, embarrassed by her student's boy like reaction.

"Awww, she's such a shy one." An elegant woman in her thirties said, looking at the blushing red head who still had her face covered.

"She a bit of a tomboy that one," Tsunade explained apologetically as Shizune was coaxing the red head.

"Don't worry they'll grow out of it when they get the unmistakable sign of being a woman." The woman whispered conspiratorially to Tsunade.

The legendary Sannin suddenly had an evil smirk. Oh she couldn't wait until Ranma had her first blood and then she'd have undeniable proof for the girl that she, indeed, a girl.

"Ranma-chan stop being so fussy!" Shizune snapped. This was not the first time she had to try and get the redhead to act normal but after three years she was getting tired of it. "Look if you EVER turn into a boy, then I swear on my honor as a Konoha nin that I will not hold it against you okay?"

"What she said, if you do ever turn out to be a boy-" Tsunade snorted at the thought; yeah that girl was going to be a real beauty when she grows up. "-I promise that we will not blame you now sit and relax!"

"Fine," Ranma said letting the palm drop from her eyes and faced the two naked woman. "When it happens, don't say I didn't tell you so!"

Now that Ranma was absolved she decided to enjoy a nice little soak in the hotel's springs when she felt something off... IN fact it felt like a Genjutsu but not directed at her in particular. Not for the first time she wished she had the ability to perform 'Kai' the genjutsu move that breaks genjutsu attacks. Still, at least Ranma could sense the direction it was in and slowly made her way over to the wooden wall that separated the male side from the female side.

Narrowing her eyes, Ranma poked at a space on the wall and felt something invisible tense up. Nodding her head Ranma turned around and made as if to walk off when she suddenly dropped down into the water. "Eeeek! A pervert!" She screamed loudly, pointing at the spot on the wall.

Tsunade was the first to reach where Ranma was pointing and, with a growl, shouted. "KAI!"

Instantly the illusion dispelled to reveal a man with long white hair dressed in red robes and looking like a deer caught in a headlight.

"Ji-rai-ya!" Tsunade growled in anger as she closed the distance between them and grabbed the legendary pervert by his throat. Her hand closed around his windpipe with bone crushing force. "Any last words?"

"Yes, several," Jiraiya said, calm as could calm could be, while he smoothed out the front of his robe. The pervert sage first turned to the redhead girl that made him and gave her a hard look. "First, young lady, I'm not a pervert!"

Ranma gave the man who Tsunade was holding in a death grip a flat half lidded stare.

"I'm a SUPER pervert! Get it right." an affronted Jiraiya explained, to which Ranma face faulted into the water. Then he turned to the slug princess. "Secondly, I said it before and I'm gonna say it now, you really, REALLY, got a nice pair of tits there. Let me rest between them, at least once before I die. What's a breast pillow between friends, right?!"

"DIE NOW!" Tsunade said as she delivered a vicious uppercut the frog Sannin, sending him off in some random direction.

Picking herself back up from the water, Ranma looked at her Sensei and gave her a questioning look. "Friend of yours?" She asked.

"Former teammate," Tsunade said tiredly. "Good call spotting that illusion." She said with a smile.

"Yeah, still can't break it though..." Ranma replied with a sigh.

"You'll get there in time, trust me!" Tsunade said with a grin as she ruffled the redhead's hair affectionately. "Well how about I take you to one of the underground casinos here to help you relax?"

Ranma narrowed her eyes and then sighed. She never thought she'd meet a worse gambler then her. "I'm not using the Umisenken to help you cheat!" She said for the umpteenth time.

"Please! We can clean them out if you just help me!" Tsunade said as she sank to her knees in the water, clasping her hand together, begging the girl. A skill that completely masked your presence and couldn't be detected even by her? Why that was just the perfect tool to use against those bad bad men at the gambling den!

Shizune, with Tonton in her arms, big sweated at the sight of the legendary Sannin begging a girl decades her junior.

TBC...

A/N: And here is Prologue Three, Next chapter should be the end of the prologues.

A narutomaki is just that little fishcake thingy I seen, yes it's that same Naruto fishcakes. As for Atsuko the slug? I pictured it sounding like Hinata from Ro Kyu Bu. Katsuyuu sound elegant, Atsuko would be childish. I seen a lot of theories thrown around but my take on it is just as crazy as anything else :D Thanks for reading!

As always C+C Welcomed, Reviews Appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

Naruto/Ranma

Naruto Belongs to Masashi Kishimoto

Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

Special Thanks to Arcanasage and thanks to Azaggthoth for once again cleaning up this chapter. Arcana especially as he finished one edited version only for me to hit him back with a completely different fic almost making him go back and work on it. To my ever lasting gratitude he agreed with the changed!

_**WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! SPOILER ALERT!**_

I understand that some people are only watching the Naruto T.V version. Some are even only watching the English dub version. I will tell you now in this chapter there are massive spoilers for the entire series itself. DO NOT READ if you still want to be in the dark about Naruto. You have been warned.

**** Jusendo *****

Ranma was covered in blood. Not the wimpy light spatter, in fact he was covered in blood from head to toe. Jumping yet again to avoid another bellow of flame from what he had now officially nick named in his head as the Kaiju, Ranma returned it's attack with a slash of ice cold air from the Gekkaja.

As for why Ranma was covered in blood? The answer was simple. It was because of what the guy Herb had called his back up had done. The young man, only slightly older than himself, had done some fancy waving around with his hands and the next thing Ranma knew the Phoenix Kaiju was sucked into the guy's mouth.

Surprised by that technique and seeing Herb's relieved face, Ranma had gone to take a closer look. Of course that was when the young man had screamed as if in agony and exploded, showering him in blood and guts. Now the Kaiju was out once again.

"Frigging great! This is nasty as hell!" Ranma muttered as he turned his sleeve inside out to wipe the blood off of his face.

"Saotome!" Herb shouted as he fired a stream of blue flame to intercept an attack from the Phoenix and was grunting under the exertion. "I require your assistance!"

"Hold out for a bit longer!" Ranma shouted as he dashed forward, under the belly of the beast. Ranma moved directly under the giant flaming kaiju and started to make a huge spiral, at least ten times bigger than the one he'd made against Saffron.

"HURRY!" Herb shouted as the Phoenix's flame was overpowering his own blue tinted one and was almost on top of him.

Like one of those country field farmers, Ranma hammered the Gekkaja into the ground over and over again turning it into ice as he shaped it into a perfect spiral.

"ARRGHHHH!" Herb screamed as the firebird's flames overpowered him.

"Fuck!" Ranma shouted as she punched up with the Gekkaja and shouted. "HIRYUU SHOTEN HA!"

The Kaiju let out an indignant cry as a gale force whirlwind formed around it, entrapping it in it's funnel.

"Herb!" Ranma shouted as he jumped over to the Dragon Prince's last known position and stopped as he saw the once handsome features of the prince now burnt and blackened. The prince was also shaking in agonizing pain.

"Saotome..." Herb said in agony as he looked at the massive Hiryuu Shoten Ha which was pretty much locking the Phoenix beast in place at the moment, though likely not for long. Closing his one good eye as if making a decision, he looked over at the pig-tailed boy. "Help me stand."

Gingerly, Ranma picked up the taller boy and slung the dragon prince's arm over his shoulder. "Let's get you out of here man." Ranma said as he made to move, only to feel Herb's arm tighten around his neck.

"There is no way for us to seal the beast now and no guarantee the Amazon's could succeed where we failed." Herb said looking at the Phoenix beast and then looked at Ranma with a grave expression. "Pretty soon my control will falter and then there would be two beasts free."

"Huh?" Ranma asked intelligently. Two beasts? What the hell is Herb talking about? Perhaps the boy was delirious from the pain.

"I am sorry Saotome," Herb said and suddenly whipped his hand out and smashed it into Ranma's stomach causing him to double over.

Gritting his teeth in pain, he did the ancient hand signs passed down for generations. What he was attempting, he wasn't even sure was going to work but there was no choice. Ranma was the only option available and if he had to pick one person to depend on, the pig-tail boy would be it.

Recovering from the gut punch Ranma stood up and glared at Herb, who was doing some funky hand waving motion. "What did you do that for?!" He demanded.

"Again,I am sorry Saotome," Herb said as he finished the last motion and put one of his hands on Ranma's stomach and the other pointed at the Phoenix that just broken out of it's temporary tornado prison.

The next thing Ranma knew everything went white.

++++ Land of Fire, Somewhere ++++

Ranma's face was scrunched up from her nightmare before she woke up, drenched in a cold sweat. Looking at the sky she noticed that dawn was just breaking wihle Tsunade's arm was draped over her stomach lightly.

Looking to her left, Ranma did not see Shizune anywhere. No doubt out to get breakfast. They had been staying at a private rental property. The owners were someone Tsunade had saved in her youth and as repayment they had given this property for her to use until she tired of it.

Which, in Ranma's opinion, was a better perk than what her father did. During her seven years together with Tsunade and Shizune, she had noticed how people reacted to Tsunade herself once they realized that she was the legendary Sannin.

The primary reaction from the regular civilians, and passing Shinobi of Konoha that sought her out, was respect. Genuine respect, something her father and she never really garnered. True the woman was irresponsible and was treated like trash by the casinos or gambling dens once she ran out of money but all in all, the general opinion of her Sensei was that of respect.

And that was something Ranma could also respect. Tsunade didn't like to talk much about her past, which was fine with Ranma as she did not want to talk much about her own either.

Over the years they had become closer than Ranma thought possible but it was enough reminiscing for her. She wanted to get training in and with Shizune making breakfast, which was something of VITAL importance to Ranma, she decided Tsunade would be her partner for this morning.

Unlike her father, who loved waking her up rudely in the morning, Tsunade preferred to sleep in and stay up late. That, to Ranma, was not a healthy way but then Tsunade said that was how Shinobi were supposed to operate, under the guise of darkness.

Ranma had narrowed her eyes at that, some of the moves she was shown were pretty flashy and destructive. If anyone used THOSE ninja skills at night they would give away their cover easily. When she pointed that out Tsunade just gave her a strange look and brushed off her inquiry.

Lowering her head right next to the Senju princess' ears Ranma opened her mouth and shouted. "TSU-CHANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!"

"WAAAHHHH!" Tsunade shouted as she jumped up from her bed and stuck to the ceiling glaring at the red head. "You're dead brat!"

"Come get me Sensei," Ranma said before she turned around to slap her ass while pulling down her eye lid. With that taunting gesture done Ranma jumped out of their second floor room's window with Tsunade in hot pursuit.

The older woman had to smile at the redhead's exuberant nature. Aside from a certain eyebrow boy from Konoha, Tsunade did not think any Ninja was as dedicated to training as Ranma was. The girl was constantly working on new and crazy attacks.

Why, the girl even came up with a specialized attack, the Hiryuu... something Ha. The Slug Sannin snorted as she recalled how the trigger for the move was made, it was now ALL but confirmed to Tsunade that Ranma was indeed from one of the main Uzu clans. Which one she did not know off hand but that giant spiral to power that wind attack looked exactly like the spiral Konoha wore to honor their fallen allies.

"Run faster Uzu-Hime, I'm almost on your tail!" Tsunade taunted before she body flickered and closed the gap between them, smashing into the smaller red head like a train.

"Urk!" Ranma grunted as she rolled with the momentum before getting up to her feet throwing several shiatsu needles at her teacher. "I am NOT an Uzu-Hime!" She shouted.

Ranma regretted showing Tsunade the Hiryuu Shoten Ha, regretted it SO much. In order to not cause suspicion, she'd claimed all of the Anything Goes moves that she'd had to be attributed to her parents' teachings. The neat thing was that Tsunade and Shizune were oddly respectful when Ranma told them they were family only techniques.

Of course she could not have realized that the Hiryuu Shoten Ha was the same shape as the Whirlpool Clan symbol. Just FRIGGIN great! With it being such a destructive attack Shizune had assumed that she came from a high ranking clan. A regular run of the mill Uzu was good enough for Ranma but Tsunade had taken Shizune's baseless assumption and decided that not only was she an Uzu survivor, she might also be Uzu nobility.

To Ranma's everlasting shame, she had been called Uzu-Hime teasingly ever since.

Tsunade grinned as her student jumped up to avoid her Shuriken barrage. Seven years of growth did wonders for the girl. No longer as small or waifish, the redhead was now a pretty girl who showed signs of growing even more beautiful when she'd get older. The girl also had taken to adopting a qipao like outfit and initially had chosen a male style cut. Naturally Shizune was going to have none of that on her watch and selected the female versions instead, much to the girl's disappointment.

Still, it did look nice on her and while it was still feminine, Ranma seemed quite pleased to be able to find that style of clothing. Of course what really touched Tsunade was when the girl opted to wear clothing similar to Tsunade herself from time to time, only red top and black bottom. For Tsunade, she knew that it was Ranma's way of paying her the ultimate sign of respect.

In fact the girl was wearing that outfit now for their morning training session. Much to Tsunade's disappointment however, she had vetoed the slug pattern designs on her outfit. She looked so adorable with little patterns designed on them!

Ranma dodged another wave of shuriken and returned several of her own. Quickly making the chakra molding symbols Ox, Boar, Pig and rooster, she clapped her hands together and shouted. "Honoryu no Jutsu!"

The moment Ranma's hands clapped together, a massive serpentine fire dragon coiled out from her hands and attacked her opponent.

"Not bad brat!" Tsunade shouted as she cocked her fist back and punched the flame dragon in its head snuffing it out. "But you'd have to do better than that mid-tier crap!"

Ranma closed in the distance between them easily and started to engage the woman in hand to hand combat. "Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken!" She shouted as thousands of fists hammered into the slug princess.

Tanking the damage, Tsunade crossed her arms in front of her face and then swept them out, smashing into Ranma's head. Capitalizing on the contact she then grabbed the girl by the head and lifted her high up before smashed her into the ground, creating a ten foot wide impact crater.

Having already braced herself for the impact Ranma, kicked up with both of her feet directly into Tsunade's face and used it as a spring board to gain some distance.

Tsunade felt the impact from the strike and grinned. She had just finished doing the last of the hand signs as she allowed herself to fall forward, as the ground neared she slammed the palm of her hand onto the surface. The moment her hand touched the dirt was the moment the ground underneath Ranma jumped up at her like a shark and enclosed her in its rock solid grip.

"Bakusai Tenketsu!" Ranma shouted as the earth shell exploded and then jumped toward Tsunade. "MOKO TAKABHISA!"

Tsunade was struck by Ranma's ki attack and smashed into a tree.

Quickly molding what Ranma named the earth bending moves, she smashed her hand onto the ground and watched as the earth opened up and clamped down on Tsunade, mirroring her attack from a few moments ago.

Breaking out of the attack easily, Tsunade took out a kunai and closed the distance between her and the red head.

Ranma drew a kunai of her own and engaged the legendary Sannin in a ninja fist fight. Both teacher and student grinned at one another as they dueled expertly with their taijutsu skills.

No matter how many new skills she'd learned, no matter how much she trained, Ranma would always fall back on her own technique. The one that she classified as purer then the chakra.

Chakra, to Ranma, was easy. Destructive and powerful beyond belief, from what she had witnessed during her travels with Tsunade. In fact, using the little bit of the reserve of chakra Ranma had, she was able to enhance herself to be just as physically strong as Tsunade for a short time.

But then right afterward came the drained feeling and the toll it took on her body was steep. Too high a price in her opinion. Tsunade herself, despite her vitality, had told her that using chakra in that way split cells rapidly... or something like that and that it would literally take off from your life span. That was wrong. So very, very WRONG. For Ranma, she knew that if she practiced hard enough, her ki would prolong her life while also enhancing her body. After all, she had Colonge and Happosai as proof. Yet the more one used Chakra, the more it takes a toll on one's body.

That was, of course, not to say there was no trade off. As much as Ranma hated to admit it, given a choice between learning chakra and ki control at a young age, she probably would have chosen to learn charka. Why? To repeat, it was easier to learn and stronger then most ki based attacks. Her Moko Takabisha? There were dozens of low level destructive jutsu that could match it's effect taught to shinobi children.

Ranma had figured it out over the years. So long as one had even a marginal talent in ki control, they could make chakra and from that anyone could do anything they wanted, as long as they could pay the price for it. It might have been the reason for the live hard and die young attitude of shinobi.

After a few long minutes of brutal combat, both fighters had taken dozens of shallow cuts but were still grinning ear to ear. Ranma started to up her attacks, moving quicker and faster this time by pumping her body with ki to enhance her strength and speed.

Like the tortoise and the hare. Sure ki would take longer to learn and master but the reward for it's mastery, in the long run, would ensure that she'd be stronger then Tsunade someday. Then came the sad afterthought, probably much longer as well. Chakra was faster but it also burnt you out faster. However, it would be foolish of Ranma if she did not learn all she could about chakra despite what Tsunade called her D-class reserves.

After all, knowing how the enemy fights is one of the most basic tenants of martial arts. Just as Ranma was about to ramp up her attack against her mentor again, she heard a familiar voice. A magical phrase from the house.

"Breakfast is ready!" Shizune announced and watched in amusement as both the teacher and student stopped in mid attack and adjusted their posture to a friendly pose as they put their weapons away.

Shizune herself had already gotten her training out of the way and watched as her two companions rushed toward the ready made breakfast in the private inn where they were currently staying.

"Buu~~Ranma-Hime, please be more careful next time, that's three broken ribs this morning!" Atsuko, the pink and white slug chided gently and opted to ignored the redheads strained look from being addressed as such.

"Tsunade-hime, you really should watch how much you push yourself, you're not as young as you once were." Katsuyuu also chided her summoner gently as the duo set about healing the two's wounds.

"Well lucky for you I have you here don't I Suko-chan?" Ranma said as she tickled the bottom of the slug's chin, who leaned into her affectionate touch. If asked years ago if she would ever pet a slug Ranma would probably have said hell no. Now she thought they were kind of cute.

"Hey, the brat was getting to big for her britches," Tsunade replied as she felt herself getting better. Truth be told Ranma's growth in Taijustu alone was alarming. The girl was damn near unbeatable by skill alone. Only by overpowering her had Tsunade been able to beat her. Well in Taijutsu that is, now if she used the other Ranma would have been soundly defeated but the girl was creating weird counters for them as well.

Ranma's Ninjtsu skill was also decent and her sealing ability combined with her hidden space technique was quite convenient. Now the traveling trio would never go hungry with how much Ranma had sealed away.

Unfortunately, Genjutsu was something Ranma had still shown zero aptitude for and most likely never would. However in return she had apparently been granted immunity to any direct Genjutsu attack on her person. A small consolation but at least it benefited her.

Still today was a day Tsunade and Shizune had meticulously planned for the past three months, ever since Ranma-chan's first blood. The girl had not panicked much, to the sage's disappointment, but Tsunade was able to finally point out to Ranma that it was undeniable proof that she was a girl.

Ranma strangely just made sure to hold the Slug Princess to the promise that if she ever turned into a boy she'd be forgiven for all the skinship moments that trio shared through the years.

'Silly girl still thinks she's a boy!' Tsunade thought in mild amusement.

Still, turning to Shizune she gave her apprentice a knowing wink and saw the younger girl stealthily sneak into the kitchen as Ranma chowed down on breakfast.

"So, you know today is a very important day right?" Tsunade started off casually.

"Really? What's going on today?" Ranma asked in between mouthfuls.

"Well, close your eyes." Tsunade said teasingly and saw as the girl gave a put upon expression before she closed her eyes as instructed.

Quietly as only a skilled ninja could, Shizune walked out from the kitchen with a huge five layer chocolate cake in her hands. They had learned some time ago that Ranma had a huge sweet tooth.

"Hey, is that chocolate I smell?" Ranma asked as she opened her eyes without permission and saw a cake in front of her. However it was the writing on the cake that caught her eye. "Congratulations on making Genin?"

"Congratulations brat/kouhai!" Tsunade and Shizune said grinning ear to ear.

Before Ranma could react she felt a soft bump on her foot by Tonton, looking down she saw the pig lifted it's head, revealing a Konoha headband in it's mouth. "Buhi!' Tonton bweehed excitedly.

"Thanks girl," Ranma said softly as she pet the usually scared pig. After their initial 'meeting', the pig had been afraid of Ranma on sight but had slowly grown better over the years and was now only nervous. She then turned her attention the two women, one her mentor and the other her senpai.

"So... aren't I supposed to actually graduate from that shinobi school Shizune-senpai told me about?" Ranma asked, confused on many levels as she felt her heart warmed by these two women who she now viewed as a surrogate mother and sister. The mother being Shizune and sister being Tsunade.

"Pffft!" Tsunade said derisively. "I don't know if you know this but I AM one of the legendary Sannin. I am more than qualified to tell if someone is Genin level or not." She said proudly.

"Technically you are a lot better than Genin, maybe even Chuunin but you still have to take the test and learn how to work in a team." Shizune explained to her kouhai after a moment of musing.

"Well, put it on!" Tsunade said excitedly as she watched while Ranma tied the headband in place around her forehead. "It looks great on you!"

"Thanks," Ranma said softly, not knowing what else to say. She was being overwhelmed by what she classified as a girly emotion. She was a guy and damn if she's not gonna keep at it until she changed back. Still though, it was nice to give in for a while, guy or girl. "So, who wants cake?"

The two women grinned in response while Tonton 'buhi-ed' her approval.

+++Later that Night +++

Ranma had adjusted the headband to where it was now hanging loosely around her neck. Over the years she had grown out and was already starting to show signs of the same figure she originally sported in her girl form.

Her hair however was kept splayed loosely at Shizune's insistence, who still treated her like a doll from time to time. Speaking of which, the two older women had gone out. No doubt one to gamble and the other one to prevent her from losing too much.

Looking out at the nighttime stars from her hotel balcony, Ranma wondered why she had not been able to change back yet. Her body was still cool to the touch in hot weather or warm in cold weather. Her ki-reserves were almost back to their former state, which was surprising to her because she was four years ahead of schedule. She guessed that while she'd just needed to let her body grow in strength appropriately her added control was helping greatly.

As for the chakra, she now had a decent supply that she used sparingly; it felt just as dirty to her now as when she first used it, so limited herself.

"Wonder how mom and pop are doing," Ranma wondered out loud. It would have been seven years now since she woke up into this world. "Akane..." She lamented softly.

Placing her hand to her neck and touching the head band again, Ranma wondered what her dad would have thought about her joining a ninja village. Although, to be fair, the ninjas here were as un-ninja like as could be. Some of their attacks were so destructive compared to the silent deadly assassins they were known to be on her world.

Still, it was nice to have a place to belong and Konoha had produced Tsunade and Shizune, so it couldn't be all that bad. Nodding firmly she decided to go to bed early underneath the soft starlight.

++++ Dream scape ++++

Ranma blinked as she found herself in front of the Tendo dojo, looking down she saw herself still in her girl body but ignored it in favor of running into the Tendo household happily. "Akane! Kasumi! Dad! Mr. Tendo! I'm back!" She shouted at the top of her lungs.

However the moment Ranma step foot in the house when she was struck by a feeling of wrongness. "Wha?"

"Finally," A familiar female voice said bringing the redhead attention to the figure. "I was wondering when you would get here Ranma Saotome."

Ranma stared wide eyed at the figure before her. "Herb?" She asked in shock seeing the girl version of the Dragon Prince in front of her. "Didn't you die?"

"In a manner of speaking," The Dragon Prince of the musk said softly before looking at the redhead. "I am all that stands between you and them." She said pointing over to the Tendo dojo itself.

"Who?" Ranma asked confused and made to follow after the Dragon prince, well princess now.

"Them," Herb said as she opened the door to the dojo to revealed two figures fighting each other. One was a man who looked like Saffron but instead of white hair he had flaming red, dressed in elegant Chinese clothes. The man was battling with a pretty woman with long blue hair clothed in dragon scale armor similar to the one Herb once wore. "I believe in Japan they are called Suzaku and Seiryuu."

Ranma's eyes widened, she knew those names. They were worshiped by Japan as guardian gods.

"Ah, Saotome finally showed up I see," Another familiar voice made itself known showing a short little boy with white hair and two white wings protruding from his back.

"Saffron?!" Ranma asked incredulously. It was Saffron but the small, young Saffron that she'd first met at Jusendo.

"Greetings Saotome," Saffron said affably in his child voice. "I am glad you remain well."

"What's going on here?" Ranma asked confused looking between the child Saffron and the girl Herb.

"Come," Herb beckoned to Ranma as Saffron stayed back to close the Dojo's door. Herb led Ranma out to the Tendo patio facing the yard.

The two former enemies stood in silence looking at the koi-less pond before Herb turned her attention over to Ranma. "You know, long ago, beasts use to roam the lands," She started as if reciting from memories. That made Ranma snap out of her own musing. "Among them were the four great god beasts, each ruling a portion of this world."

Ranma was about to ask why the dragon prince, or princess now, was talking about stuff she didn't understand. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Ignoring Ranma's question Herb continued. "There was Genbu, the protector that rules the north. Suzaku the fiery ruler the South, to west was the ferocious Byakko and to the east was Seiryuu of the stormy seas."

Ranma nodded along at the knowledge which was common in their myths but still failed to see the point.

"The four god beasts ruled over all others under their domain but by no means was it utopia, as wars were waged between the four frequently for dominance." Herb explained as she looked over at Ranma before turning back at the koi pond. "But that all changed one day, when a goddess from a far off land poisoned this world's inhabitants. She then unleashed an unstoppable ten tailed demon beast to lay waste to the four god beast's territories."

"Despite their combined powers, they had become allies too late and could only watch as their armies fell before the Ten Tailed Demon." Herb continued to explain. "Acknowledging their loss, they fled and gathered their most loyal followers to go to a new world."

Ranma eyes snapped wide open and looked incredulously at Herb. "You can't possibly mean...!" She said looking at the dragon girl wide eyed.

"Have you not noticed the similarity between our worlds and theirs? Did you think it was mere coincidence that we share such similar cultures?" Herb said giving Ranma an imperious look. The multi-color haired girl turned her attention back to the empty koi pond and continued her story after a few moments of silence. "Of the tribes that followed the god beasts; only the Musk, The Phoenix Tribes and the Amazons remained. The rest scattered throughout the new world to mingle with the populace."

"Still, the god beasts were weakened due to their war with Kaguya and the energy expended in getting their follower's to Earth," Herb continued on then looked at Ranma from the corner of her eyes. "Their followers, no longer wanting to wage petty wars again in their gods name's, betrayed them."

Inhaling deeply, Herb turned to look at Ranma. "A technique taken from the old lands, taught amongst the ancient Jusendo allies. A way to seal the god beasts. The container of a god beast would come to be known as a Jinchuriki." Herb continued before looking at Ranma. "I was such a container and so was Saffron."

Ranma had to widen her eyes at that, so Herb wasn't kidding when he had said he was a dragon descendant.

"Of course being a container for the god beasts, it is best to have someone specifically trained since childhood to bind them. As a side effect of being the container, there were some bleed over effect." Herb said pointing to her elfish ears and then placed a hand on her chest. "In my tribe's case we were granted mastery over ki techniques along with incredible ki reserves, while Saffron was granted mastery over fire and constant regenerative ability."

Not knowing what else to say Ranma remained silent.

Turning to Ranma, Herb softly continued her story in a reverent manner. "We have existed in peace, be it an unsteady one, with one another for nearly over a thousand years and held the beasts imprisoned for generation after generation-"

"Then you killed me and so here we are in this predicament," Saffron interrupted as he walked up between the two girls on the patio. "Of course my arrogance probably contributed to my downfall but had you not cut me down with your final attack I don't think the seal would have broken."

Ranma looked away guiltily, it was coming back to her now what happened. She remembered Herb doing some weird hand gestures during their final moments. Which, she realized upon reflection, were similar to what the shinobi here used to use their jutsu but had slight variations to each stance.

"You were molding chakra!" Ranma said having finally noticed the similarity of what Herb did in what she now labeled as her final earthly moment.

"No!" Herb said immediately and even Saffron looked displeased at the thought. "I was molding ki seals. You have felt chakra; it's wrong, tainted, dirty."

"But destructive," Ranma countered but she could not deny Herb assessment. "And has many uses."

"Only in this world," Herb replied softly. "Only here, where Kaguya and her spawns have tainted the land and it's people could you fully use chakra."

"However our time is running short. Herb and I can no longer hold the two god beasts at bay," Saffron said turning to Ranma. "All this time we were keeping them imprisoned, focused on each other. Holding one god beast is a big enough chore, holding two would be nigh impossible."

"Without help that is," Herb corrected the child king as she continued to look out at the yard. "The remnants of our souls and power have permeated your very body along with your own considerable talents but we will soon be at the end of ours. When that happens..."

Stunned by the revelation Ranma had to ask. "What happens if they over power me?"

"Well, beside a very bloody and messy show... They will be free to wreak havoc through the lands. Suzaku intends to rid the taint of chakra in the land by purging it with his fire." Saffron explained as he took a seat next to the pig tailed girl.

"And Seiryuu?" Ranma asked looking at girl Herb.

"She wants to flood the lands and drown it's inhabitants for submitting to Kaguya," Herb said sardonically with a small shake of her head. "She is not the nicer of the two if you were wondering."

"We had an understanding with them," Saffron said kicking his feat lazily over the patio. "You, however, will have to tame them for them to recognize you as their jailer."

"Great," Ranma said sighing as she ran a hand into her hair. "Just great, my life's in danger again? What else is new?"

"Unfortunately," Herb said consolingly and started to swing her legs over the patio childishly. "However if you DO tame them you would be granted access to their powers so it is not all bad."

"I see..." Ranma said sighing softly and together the three were silent as they watched the sky pass over head for a few minutes. The only sound in the silence Tendo compound was the battle cries coming from the Dojo itself.

"Oh yeah, I was wondering but you wouldn't happen to know why I can't changed back like normal would ya?" Ranma asked looking at the two.

The two residents of Jusenkyo looked at one another and looked back together at the Dojo.

"Why would they do that?" Ranma asked miffed.

"I am not certain of their purpose myself," ," Herb said smiling. "However their powers are tied to Jusenkyo in ways I don't quite fully understand myself. If I had to take a guess, I think they prefer you in your Jusenkyo form over your male one."

"Arghh!" Ranma shouted as she grabbed her and ruffled her hair into disarray. "Fucking pain in my ass!"

"It's probably serves a purpose for them that you remain this way. However if you tame them you can switch back and forth at will," Herb explained in amusement but she corrected herself. "With an application of cold and hot water of course."

"Of course..." Ranma growled darkly. "So how do I go about taming them?"

Saffron and Herb looked at Ranma as if she was stupid. "Well, when I had her in my soul scape, Seiryuu was chained down in her large serpentine form on a rocky mountain top."

"And I had Suzaku submerged in water." Saffron replied after few second of thought. "With his giant wings pinned by big metal stakes."

"You've already imprisoned them after a fashion." Herb said as he motioned to the entire compound. "Now you've just got to go in there and tame them."

"You mean I made the Tendo Dojo their prison?" Ranma asked surprised.

"And apparently bound them to human forms where they are right now battling one another," Herb clarified, looking at Ranma with a grin. "Judging by your method of imprisonment, you would probably have to defeat them in a feat of martial arts."

"Remember though. They might try and trick you to free themselves. You must be certain that they've submitted to you," Saffron cautioned as he stood up. "We can hold them for a few more years yet while you get stronger and then after that... it would all hinge on your willpower."

"Of course if you had the Gekkaja and Kinjakan, it would make your task much easier." Herb hinted to Ranma as she too got up.

"The staves? Aren't they are back on Earth?" Ranma asked.

"They are here in this land, we have sensed their power." Saffron said, nodding as he too got to his feet. "It is due west from your current position; in fact it's presence was very strong in the place you called Land of Snow. At least one of them are..."

"Oh, I will warn you. When you begin the taming process, you could potentially unleash life threatening energies..." Herb warned and gave Ranma a knowing look. "If you care for anyone, it is best to not be near them."

Realizing what Herb meant, the red head opened her mouth. "So I have to leave Tsunade and Shizune?" Ranma asked softly.

Saffron and Herb looked at Ranma sympathetically. "If your taming goes wrong, they would be the first ones hurt or maybe even killed."

"Understood," Ranma said softly. "You know, you guys are a lot nicer dead than alive." She said with a laugh, not noticing the angry tick that developed on her two guests' heads.

What followed afterward was a three way brawl between two dead souls and one living prison.

++++ A few weeks later ++++

Tsunade woke up and tugged at the mattress where Ranma would have been asleep. Ranma had been acting oddly obedient lately, offering her shoulder rubs, back rubs for her sore joints and doing all the cleaning for the past couple of weeks.

When she had voiced her suspicion, Shizune said that maybe Ranma was overcome with gratitude for being Genin as for the past few weeks the normally feisty girl had been the perfect model student.

"Hmmm, Good morning Tsunde-sama." Shizune greeted, waking up in the futon that was on the other side of Ranma's. "Looks like Ranma-chan woke up early again today to make us breakfast."

"Well, I am glad to see her growing up." Tsunade said gruffly but inwardly was proud of her second student. After completing her morning cleanup she walked out to the kitchen of their little rental property and saw breakfast prepared as usual. In fact today seemed to be that oddly made 'Westerner' breakfast as Ranma called it.

Well, Tsunade been out west and their cuisine was NOTHING like this but it tasted so good.

"How does Ranma-chan come up with so many new dishes?!" Shizune said jealously as she ate what was called poached egg with hollandaise sauce.

After a few minutes of eating, a soft bump on Shizune's ankle let her know that Tonton wanted her attention.

"Buhi..." The now sizable pig said sadly as it bowed down to show the letter attached to it's necklace.

"Ohh, a letter?" Shizune asked puzzled before looking at the handwriting. "From Ranma-chan?" She said and opened it to read.

A moment later a gasp from Shizune let Tsunade know something was wrong. "Shizune?" She asked worriedly.

Shizune with a trembling lower lip handed the letter over to her mentor.

Tsunade did not know why but she had a sinking feeling as she grabbed the letter and read it's contents. Then she read it again, and again, and yet again not believing what she was reading.

"Okay Ranma, Hah hah! Very funny, you can show yourself now, you got us!" Tsunade said immediately but her only reply was silence. "Seriously, you idiot, you're gonna make Shizune cry! Stop messing around brat!"

Once more only silence answered, followed by a soft 'Buhi' from Tonton.

"Ranma get your ass out here right now or else I will be ANGRY!" Tsunade shouted loudly but once again silence was her only reply.

"Buhi..." Tonton said sadly as it bumped it snout against the Sannin's leg. "Buhi..buhi...buhi..."

"AHHH!" Tsunade yelled as her fist slammed down on the table, splitting it in half. "Ranma you IDIOT!"

Several miles away to the northwest, Ranma knew that she had probably hurt the two people she cared for most in this world. But she knew if she did not go now, she would have put them in danger when she tried to reign in the power of the god beasts. Ranma would rather that they hate her then get hurt because of her.

However once Ranma got her god beasts under control she planned to go back and execute the 'Crouch of the Wild Tiger' and let her friends punish her as they saw fit. That, she vowed solemnly.

TBC...

AN: Well it finally now that the set up is out of the way we can move on with the main story. So no doubt people are going WHAT the FLYING FUCK?!

All I can say is please feel free to speculate but don't jump to conclusion. There's a reason why I tagged this fic with a Mystery tag, it was NOT on a whim I did it.

Most fic set up everything you know in advance, here I choose to reveal things to the audience as I revealed them to the characters in the fic. As for Suzaku and Seiryuu kind of borrowed them from Earth Legends, linked our life style to theirs,Ancient China and Japan and of course the Fushigi Yuugi version of humanoid avatars.

What are they? Secret. Why does Ranma get two? Secret. Is Ranma going to be OPED as fuck? Please see the Naruto verse for answers to your Jinchuriki question.

:D

As for Ranma Stats?

Tsunade Grading:

Taijutsu- A

Ninjutsu- C -

Genjutsu - F

Chakra reserve are about average genin level.

Thank you again for reading :D

As always C+C welcome, Reviews always always appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

Naruto/Ranma

Naruto Belongs to Masashi Kishimoto

Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

Special thanks to Arcanasage and Azaggthoth (seriously just beasting it up here) for editing this chapter! Take the time out to read the author notes at the bottom :D Without further adieu!

Here's Ranma!

**Timeline: **_Sometime between Episode 1 of Naruto Shippuden and Episode 400_

**** Unknown Place *****

Ranma was once more smashed into the walls of the Tendo Dojo painfully. Normally such an impact should have put him through the wall but not here, not in his own mindscape.

"Okay, you fuckers, you want it rough today eh?" Ranma said as he got up and charged back against the two smug looking beasts turned human.

Sweeping his legs underneath the first one, who immediately hopped over his strike, he felt the incoming attack from the flame hair man. He grabbed the attacking limb with his hand, stealing the momentum, and immediately launched himself to connect with a vicious flip kick that caught the blue haired woman underneath her chin.

Twisting his head aside, he felt as the red haired man's fist barely missed his face. Feeling the pressure from the attack, he countered it with a punch of his own directly into the phoenix beast embodiment's face.

Recovering from the earlier kick, the elegant blue haired woman cupped her hands together and fired a beam of blue ki at the pig tailed boy. "Koryu Kame Ha!"

Ranma saw the attack coming and moved to twist out of the way but was surprised when Suzaku grabbed a hold of his shirt by the shoulders. Having had his momentum shifted in midair he was guided directly in front of the beam.

"URRGHHHHHH!" Ranma grunted in pain as he was struck dead on. Unfortunately he felt Suzaku grab his body and locked him into place as Seiryuu's ki beam tried to drill a hole through his chest.

"You will have to do BETTER!" Suzaku growled in Ranma ears as he held the boy in place for his rival to finish off.

Ranma struggled but the Phoenix beast was too powerful and he could already feel his chest starting to cave in from the concentrated beam of ki Seiryuu was firing out. "ARGHHHH!"

However before Seiryuu's attack COULD finish off Ranma, twin beams of ki and a wave of flame struck the two beast gods breaking their concentration.

A dazed Ranma felt himself picked up and taken out of the Tendo Dojo. Immediately he felt his shirt ripped open exposing his chest and felt a pair of cool feminine hands on it a moment later, channeling her ki to heal his wounds.

"I think that should be enough for today." Herb-chan said as she looked down at Ranma's wounds and nodded. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Saffron, still in his child form, barring the Tendo Dojo door shut. The Gekkaja and Kinjakan making a cross shaped barrier at the entrance.

"They've gone back to fighting each other now," Saffron said after a moment of leaning his ears against the door.

Ranma breathed easier, despite this being his mind scape, as he felt Herb gradually healed the damage to his soul. "Damn beasts..." He muttered then noticed that Herb and Saffron were giving each other uncomfortable looks. "What?"

"We- ah..." Herb said looking away before looking back to Saffron. "You tell him."

"Why me? I hate him, you actually respect Saotome, you tell him." Saffron said in a childish tone of voice looking at the dragon princess.

"Tell me what?" Ranma said worriedly as he looked back and forth between the two dead spirits.

It was Herb-chan who exhaled a deep breath as if she was about to deliver some bad news. "So you know how you asked us to look into why you are prevented from changing back?" She asked softly.

Saffron suddenly got up and ran away from the two into another part of the house, making Ranma even more nervous.

Gulping, Ranma nodded. "Tell me." He said getting ready for bad news.

Herb-chan nodded before leaning into Ranma's ears and whispered.

Ranma's face, despite this being a dream scape, took on a pallor fit for the dead, his eyes turning wild as he looked at the dragon princess and said the only words that sums up his thought on the matter.

"NO FUCKING WAY!"

++++ Konoha++++

Izumo Kamizuki and his best friend, aka partner in crime, Kotetsu Hagane were doing what they did best. What was, in their opinion, the most difficult job in all of Konoha. Guarding it's front door.

"Move it along people!" Izumo shouted over to the caravan as they continued to move at a slower than normal pace. It was causing a small traffic jam to form as Kotetsu was checking over their paperwork and making sure everything was in order. "Okay everything looks good here. Next!"

"Hmmm so this is Konoha." A soft female voice said as she handed Izumo her papers. Always one to check out new girls, he glanced up and saw the female cloaked herself with a hood.

"Sorry honey but the hood stays off," Izumo said kindly as he saw the girl had expertly shrouded herself.

The girl paused and Izumo could see a slight hesitation in her demeanor. With a quick nod to his partner, he saw Kotetsu slowly put his hand on his kunai pouch ready to attack at a moment's notice.

"Sorry," The girl said softy, "I didn't know."

With that the girl put her small hand on either side of the hood and revealed her face, making several of the younger teens in the caravan gasp while Izumo stared a bit.

The girl was exotically pretty. Flaming red hair cascading down her back, crystal-like blue eyes with pale white skin, her lips were naturally pink and not a single smidgen of makeup could be seen anywhere on her face.

"Oh my, am I hideous?" The redhead asked softly looking distressed.

"Huh? Oh, NO! No!" Izumo said quickly and saw that his friend Kotetsu was nodding along with him. "Well, looks like everything checks out, enjoy your visit in Konoha Miss Saotome."

"Thank you!" The girl gushed, favoring Izumo with a smile making his heart skipped a beat.

As soon as the red headed girl a few blocks between herself and the gate she glanced back at the village entrance and frowned. "Wow, those were like the sloppiest guards ever." Ranma assessed that if any pretty face could get her into Konoha without further scrutiny then the town could be put in danger.

Turning around she saw her reflection off a piece of metal from a weapon shop.

Normally Ranma would prefer to have her hair in a pigtailed bundle but had it out for now to give off an aura of submission so people would think she's harmless. Grinning at the deception she recalled how that had been common ground between her and Tsunade. It was an important element of Anything Goes after all and ninja were... well, ninja.

Looking around Ranma saw the civilians bustled back and forth up and down the street going about their business. She was finally here, in Konoha at last. The last known position of Tsunade and Shizune.

It had surprised her. Tsunade had told Ranma before, during their time together, that she would never ever step foot in her home village again. Train her and Shizune as members of this village sure, set foot in it? Never. And she hadn;t been able to find out why. But the villagers had been insistent and most of the civilians she'd passed had not known or were not sure themselves. Ranma would never ask any passing Shinobi, they tend to be an untrusting and paranoid lot.

Not for the first time, she thought the information she'd gotten from the old man in Wave country about Tsunade's last known position was bogus. Especially when he fed her that line about Tsunade being the Hokage of Konoha. That had to be bullshit as far as Ranma was concerned. Try as she might, she could not quite picture Tsunade as the leader of a rat pack much less an entire nation of ninjas. "Yeah, Tsunade the Hokage," She snorted in amusement. "And I'm really Uzu nobility."

After breaking down in laughter at the thought, Ranma took a look around the village and saw what looked to be Mount Rushmore in the distance. "Okay, that's new." Ranma said as she squinted at faces on the monument. IF she didn't know better she would have thought one of them look like her Sensei. Shaking her head, she decided to look around and subtly ask for some information.

No sooner had Ranma started moving again, she instantly felt several pairs of eyes on her. Turning around she noticed that there was no one in sight. Closing her eyes she felt with her senses and sure enough there were some powerful corrupted ki signatures in fixed positions around here. These must be the Anbu guards of Konoha who's job it was, she was told, were to keep an eye on suspicious looking individuals.

Maybe they weren't as lax as Ranma thought they were. Sure she'd gotten past the front gate but now she could feel maybe two pairs of eyes on her. Acting normally and like a tourist would, Ranma went from stall to stall looking for something to eat.

It became apparent to her that she was not being followed as the corrupted signature remained in the same spot. However the moment she got to a new area she felt anther set of eyes on her. While the corrupted ki signature was similar, their presence clearly felt different from the other two. Putting two and two together, she deduced that each section of town was monitored by a different set of ninja. Their purpose, Ranma speculated as she ate some dango, was probably to keep an eye on new faces in the area.

Ranma managed to be impressed by that level of dedication shown by the local shinobi. Was it something she would ever do? Hell no. But to put that effort into being able to know who's who at a glance, that was pretty impressive.

"Sorry Anko, that red head bought the last my stock for the day." The Dango stall's owner said as he pointed directly at Ranma. He felt sorry for tossing such a good customer to the wolves but Anko was scary.

Ranma looked down on her hand and sweated. Maybe she shouldn't have bought so much to avoid suspicion as now one very angry scantily clad kunoichi was headed her way. But it was some damn good dango.

"You there!" The purple spiky haired ninja shouted at the red head. One hand extended and pointing at her keeping Ranma frozen, Anko stalked up to the pretty teen.

Schooling her face to look meek and submissive, Ranma took on a fearful anxious look and inwardly cheered as the ninja no longer looked as angry but was still agitated.

"You gonna eat all of that?" The one the stall owner called Anko asked looking at the treasure trove in Ranma's hand.

"A- Ah, n- n- no ma-ma'am," Ranma stuttered and pitched her voice to come off as submissive. "I j-ju- just accidentally b-bought to-too much."

Anko examined the red head searchingly before breaking out into a smile. "I'll buy half of it from you, wadda ya say?" She offered as she took out some bills.

Ranma made sure to nervously nod as she handed over half of her dango to the fishnet wearing ninja, adding just enough shake to her hands. "So-sorry for any tr-trouble." She said shyly, eyes looking downcast.

"Bah! Don't worry about it. You must be new in town." Anko said as she started to devour one of the dango sticks on the spot. "Got that uneasy feeling of being watched do ya?"

"Oh? I-Is that what it was? Ho- how can you tell someone is new?" Ranma asked with shy curiosity.

"The village may be big but we know who's who so any new face to us shinobi is tagged for monitoring." Anko explained as she worked on her second stick. "Don't worry, after a while you'll be pissing without realizing they're still watching."

Ranma had to blanch at that but nodded her thanks to the kunoichi before making her way around town, taking in the sights. Finding a natural place for a rest on a park bench, she observed the ninja still watching her diligently and took note that she was not the only one they were looking at. Some of the people in the crowd were nervously looking over their shoulder or at the empty building tops.

"Konohamaru no bakaaa!"

Ranma snapped out of her observation from her park bench at the sound to see a group of children chasing each other. In particular, she noticed a small boy with a Konoha headband running from a girl that was no doubt intending to harm him bodily. Unfortunately the boy was not looking at where he was running and was making his way toward her. Ranma, not wanting to attract undue attention until she was sure Tsunade was here, sighed and resigned herself to taking the hit. As she predicted, the little boy tried to jump over the bench and knocked the dango out of her lap.

"AHHHH! Baka Konohamaru, look what you did to her food!" A small girl with a funky, gravity defying hair style shouted at the boy.

The boy, Konohamaru apparently, turned around and his eyes widened at what happened. "Ahhh! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" He said bowing before the red head over and over again.

"It's okay," Ranma said softly but inwardly was seething. Punk ass brat wasting her food like that! NO ONE wastes Ranma Saotome food! "Accidents happen."

"Ummm, we don't have money right now but if you want to hit baka-maru you can," The brown hair girl with the funky hairdo said.

"It's okay, Just watch out next time okay?" Ranma said kindly but was mere inches from booting the little brats away.

"Thanks Onee-san!" The three genin said happily before bowing to the redhead and running off.

Ranma's eyebrows twitched at the word 'Onee-san' but calmed herself down as she reached down to grab the Dango from the ground. Blowing on it, she tried her best to dust it off. After all, Kami made dirt and dirt don't hurt.

"You really shouldn't be eating stuff off the ground like that." A male voice said from behind Ranma.

Turning around, she noticed that it was a boy about her current physical age that had addressed her. Immediately one thing stood out to her, he had freaky milky white eyes. This must be one of the Huuyga, the people with the Byakugan eyes.

"Well it's not all that dirty," Ranma said evenly as she saw the boy was looking at her strangely. Thinking on what Tsunade taught her about them Ranma casually noted that she didn't notice any veins bulging from the area around his eyes, which meant he had not activated it to look at her. For a moment she was curious if he would be able to see her ki reserves or not, the chakra however was a given.

"Still, it is not clean." The boy insisted again, looking at the offending item in Ranma's hands.

Blinking, Ranma finally realized why this boy was pestering her. He really felt it was dirty and unsanitary of her to eat the picked up food. Sighing, she got up and dumped it in the public garbage can near her. As if that was all he needed to see the white eyed freak gave a self-satisfied nod before turning his back and walking away.

Ranma got up with a sigh and decided to do some more sight seeing, letting her feet take her aimlessly around. Even after years living in this world it amazed her with it's duality. The homes and stores that would not be out of place in ancient Japan yet with electricity, running water, plumbing systems and they had radios and T.V! It was just more obvious here, as it seemed such luxuries were more common in Konoha. Walking a bit more, she realized she was getting closer to what she'd dubbed Mount Rushmore. When she got her first good look at one of the faces on the mountain side she did a double take that threatened to give her whiplash.

"No fucking way..." Ranma said in shocked disbelief. There, plain as day and literally for all to see, was Tsunade's face carved in stone. She wasn't imagining things, it REALLY was her Sensei's face carved into the mountainside!

Unfortunately for Ranma, she was so shocked about seeing her Sensei's face etched into the rock that she failed to notice an argument between a blond boy and pink haired girl had escalated to violence. On the pink haired girl's part of course.

"Watch out!" A coarse scratchy voice shouted in a panic.

Ranma's senses warned her of an incoming projectile and reflexively moved her body to dodge it. Unfortunately the projectile in question was bigger than a kunai or shuriken. It was a body, a boy to be exact, as he collided into her roughly.

Automatically, not wanting to be smashed into the wall, Ranma rolled with the momentum so that the boy in question could bear the full brunt of the impact against the wall in her stead. To her great misfortune, the boy seemed to have some idea of trying to protect her from the impact as he closed his arms around her tightly in an effort to shield her just as Ranma was about to spring board clear from him.

The two teens smashed through the wall and tumbled trough the debris before they came to a complete stop.

"Ngggh," Ranma groaned as she felt a heavy weight on top of her. Ranma blinked her eyes to clear them and try to see through the dust kicked up from smashing into this, apparently abandoned, home. Ranma found herself looking up at a spiky blond haired boy with light strange whisker marks on his cheeks. It was then she felt a sensation on her chest, one she had not felt for quite some time...

"Are you alright?" The blonde boy asked looking in concern at the pretty redhead who was looking angrier by the second at him. Sweating bullets he then noticed that his hands were on the girl's breasts and he had a pretty firm grip on them.

"NARUTOOOOOO!" Sakura of Team 7 bellowed as she came upon the scene of her teammate sexually molesting a civilian. She had intended to deck her perverted teammate once more but then the red head on the ground grabbed Naruto's throat and to her surprise, lifted him up off his feet despite her short stature.

"Any last words?" Ranma asked in a calm manner, not realizing that she was imitating Tsunade exactly when she dealt with a certain perverted Sannin.

Naruto, Orphan, Kyuubi Container, Prankster, student to the legendary Toad Sage and all around good guy gulped. "They... they felt really nice?" He offered with a nervous smile.

"Why thank you," Ranma said in a false cheery voice before her expression fell into a murderous one a second later. "Please die now." With one hand wrapped around a nervous Naruto's neck and another with her arm cocked back to dish out divine punishment, a loud animal sound made itself known to disrupt Ranma's train of thought.

"BUUUUUHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIII!" A familiar animal squeal sounded close by making Ranma's eyes widen.

"Tonton come back!" Another familiar female voice called close by as Ranma slowly turned her head to the entrance.

Ranma, with the boy Naruto still in her hand, watched as a pink pig ran in and started to bump her nose against her ankle in an angry manner.

No sooner had Tonton came in then a very frantic Shizune followed before freezing up at the sight of the red head.

"Shizune-senpai!" Sakura said on seeing her senior's arrival but was surprised when she saw the stunned look the woman was giving the red head.

"So it is true, the red head really was you." Shizune said softly, as if not believing. Ignoring Naruto's plight for now, who was starting to look a bit blue from the smaller redhead's powerful grip, she walked up to the girl and pulled at the girl's cheek and elicited a response from the girl.

"Orrrw..." Ranma slurred as her cheeks was pinched then pulled.

"You're really here..." Shizune said wonderingly, looking at the redhead as if not believing her very eyes.

Nodding softly the redhead nodded to her senior and smiled. "I'm ba-urkkk!"

Sakura's eyes widened as she saw her senpai, the normally nice and gentle Shizune, gut punch the redhead with enough force to double the girl over her arm. Then taking out a paralytic needle from her pouch she stabbed the back of the redhead's neck with it, making her slump lifelessly over her arm.

"Wha! Wha?!" Sakura said looking bugged eye as her normally kind Senpai's face took on a vicious expression while she tied the red head up. Looking over at Naruto, she saw the freed boy scrambling away quickly from the usually nice woman in fear. Even Tonton had a mean furrowed expression on her face.

Slinging the red head over her shoulder like a sack of rice Shizune nodded at Tonton, who also looked pleased by what had happened, before the elder medic-nin noticed that she had company. "Ah, Sakura, Naruto. I didn't see you there, greetings." She said cheerfully, not realizing that she had frightened the two teens with her brutal actions.

"W-wh-what's going on? Wa-wh-why'd you hit her so hard?" Naruto recovered first to exclaim loudly while he eyed the unconscious girl.

"Family matters Naruto-kun." Shizune answered in a dark tone of voice. Her eyes glinted with malice before turning back to the frightened blond boy with a pleasant expression on her face again. "She's not an enemy."

"Who is she Shizune-senpai?" Sakura asked. She'd never seen her second mentor so vicious with strangers but clearly the girl was not an enemy or else she'd be dead or turned over to the torture division already.

Shizune gave the two teens a pleasant smile and pointed to the redhead over her shoulders and said. "This here is your baka senpai, Ranma, Sakura."

Sakura eyes widened while Naruto had a look of revelation on his face. No wonder that monstrous grip felt familiar, it was just like Sakura's!

"Se-Senpai?" Sakura asked in amazement. She didn't realize there was anyone else besides Shizune ahead of her. "Wait, why did you knock her out and where are you taking her?"

Suddenly the two teens hugged each other as Shizune's expression, once serene and peaceful, turned down right mean and nasty. Even Tonton was imitating her expression, making it look more like a devilish boar than a pig.

Grinning with a disturbing glint in her eyes, Shizune looked at Sakura and grinned. "Why, we're going to see the Tsunade-sama of course."

"Oba-san?" Naruto said confused. "Why?"

"Baka, because if's she my Senpai then that means she was Tsunade-sama's student too." Sakura explained while looking at the red head uncertainly and the evil smile that still adorned Shizune's face.

"Ohh!" Naruto said finally realizing it as he saw Shizune walk out of hole in the wall.

'Brat!' A familiar growl chimed in Naruto's head.

'What do you want?' Naruto mentally shouted back and saw Sakura follow the head medic-nin respectfully.

'Follow that girl,' The Kyuubi, better known as the Nine Tailed Fox that had wrecked Konoha years ago, ordered gruffly. 'There is something about that girl...'

Naruto heard the tone the Kyuubi used. It sounded like... it sounded like it was baring it teeth as it was talking, much like the Inuzuka dogs when they sensed something was off. 'What got you on edge?' He asked curiously.

'NOTHING'S got me on edge!' The Kyuubi roared in Naruto mind scape. As if it would EVER be put on edge, not even Madara could put him on edge much less this slip of a girl.

'Then why you want me to follow her to Baa-chan's office?' Naruto challenged his tailed beast internally.

'...'

The silence from the Kyuubi made Naruto grin. It wasn't often he could get the fox to shut up but because he was who he was, he decided to follow Shizune anyway. After all, trust had to begin from somewhere.

'You're welcome' Naruto projected inwardly and grinned as he heard the snarl from the fox demon.

'I never said thank you brat!' The Kyuubi roared in indignation. Him thanking the hairless monkey?! Outrageous!

'You just did,' Naruto said in a sing song manner inside his head. He then began to hum a happy tune knowing it was going to annoy the nine-tailed fox.

Sakura turned to see Naruto, who had both of his arms behind his head, whistling a tune and following along. She had thought he was going to visit his apartment like he said earlier.

Turning her attention forward she glanced at the red head and studied her supposed senpai, who was currently draped over Shizune-senpai's shoulder. Right away she noticed how pretty the girl was, long red silky looking hair that had a natural curl, the exotic redness to it only accentuated the almost pale creamy skin she had. In fact, the redhead's face didn't look like she had a smidgen of make up on it.

Then, of course, there was the one thing that really stuck out to Sakura. Well, TWO things to be exact. The girl was big for her size. Looking down at her own chest, Sakura bit her lower lip in envy. 'Cha! She really is Tsunade's student!' Inner Sakura confirmed.

A few minutes later after passing the Anbu guarding Hokage's Tower and passing by the secretary. Naruto, Sakura, Shizune along with Tonton watched the leader of Konoha lazily stamping the pile of paper in front of her, not even bothering to glance at the content.

Shizune's left eye twitched at the carelessness of her mentor as the woman was looking out the window stamping away. Still, they had bigger fish to fry. "AHEM!" She cleared her throat startling the bored Hokage.

"Hmm?" Tsunade said before turning to look at the group. She had sensed them and dismissed them as a non-threat before they even got to her door. It was then she saw what was in Shizune's arms, that red coloration.

Naruto and Sakura jumped a bit as the fifth Hokage of Konoha's eyes widened and stood up at her desk, knocking the chair haphazardly on the floor behind her.

"Is that-!" Tsunade trailed off looking at the bundle over Shizune's shoulder.

"Hai, Tsunade-sama, it's her." Shizune said respectfully as she gently lowered the red head in her arms. One needle stab later and the redhead's eyes fluttered opened and immediately took in her surroundings.

"Wha? Where?" Ranma said before her eyes locked on the figure of Tsunade wearing a Happi with flame symbols over it. "T-Tsuande!" She said in a strained voice before gulping.

"Ranma-chan," Shizune said in an eerily soft voice as her hand fell on the redhead's shoulder before beginning to squeeze tightly. "You've been a very, _very_ naughty girl..."

Gulping harder as she knew what that look from Shizune meant. Tsunade, amazingly enough, was just looking at her with no heat in her eyes. "Look, I can explain! It's a long story but, ummm, I had a good reason for leaving!" She blurted out quickly.

Time to execute the greatest move EVER invented in the Anything Goes School. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Forgive me!" Ranma pleaded as she executed the **Crouch of the Wild Tiger** to perfection. Even the hardest of villains would have taken pity and forgiven her.

Sakura and Naruto just looked at the girl who was, well there was no two ways about it, groveling in front of Tsunade for mercy. Naruto knew firsthand how scary the Slug sannin could be, having been on the receiving end of many of her punches. Sakura, on the other hand, could only imagine what the girl must have done to grovel like that. Surprisingly her Sensei was still looking at the red head with an unreadable expression.

Ranma continued to grovel when she felt a shift in movement as Tsunade's presence got closer. To her surprise she felt a soft touch on her shoulder. Looking up she saw Tsunade's other hand cup her cheek as if searching her face.

"You've grown so much." Tsunade's tone was soft as her eyes took in the changes the girl had gone through.

"Yeah..." Ranma said before she felt herself lifted up like old times and hugged by Tsunade.

"We were so worried," Tsunade whispered softly in Ranma's ear. "Shizune was inconsolable for a time and Tonton was devastated when you left."

"I... I'm sorry," Ranma said ashamed as she heard the soft whispers from Tsunade. "It was a good reason, I'll tell ya about it ya know."

"Good, I want to hear all about it and what you have been up to for these past couple of years." Tsunade enthused, still hugging Ranma tightly to her.

Naruto and Sakura were surprised by the genuine affection the legendary woman had for the redhead.

"Not a problem," Ranma said smiling before her eyes shot open in concern. "Ummm. Tsu-chan, your kind of hugging me a bit too tight here..."

"Oh, am I really?" Tsunade said in a kind tone of voice, seemingly genuinely shocked. "I'm sorry, here tell me if this feels better."

"Urkk! Nu-No!" Ranma said as the hug got even tighter. "It's beginning to hurt... Tsu-chan."

"Really?" Tsunade said surprised before her kind expression made a completely one eighty. "Good."

"URRRKKKK!" Ranma choked as she look at Tsunade's face in fear while the bear hug got tighter and tighter.

"You've been a bad girl Ranma-chan and you know what happens to bad girls..." Tsunade said in a soft deadly whisper.

Sakura and Naruto hugged each other in fear. They had thought a demonic looking Shizune was scary but they were wrong! The agonized cry and the sounds of breaking bones seemed to fill the small room.

'Baa-chan scary! Baa-chan scary! Baa-chan SCARY!' Naruto mentally screamed as he was unable to tear his eyes away from the scene even as the redhead's scream became louder.

'Oh shit, Oh shit, Oh shit, Oh shit!" Sakura shouted with Inner Sakura saying much of the same. They didn't know what the redhead did to displease their master but she was going to find out and NEVER do it. EVER!

**_-CRACK-_**

"HUUAARRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

TBC...

AN: No doubt you have questions between what happened between then and now , did I do a time skip? You betcha? Why did I do the time skip? (Points to Mystery Tag). Why didn't Tsunade find out about the beast upon Ranma physical? Feel free to speculate but the answers already been hinted at in the previous chapter. Why did Ranma just leave? Wouldn't it be smarter for her to stay? Ranma mental age is what...25, by all right she's an adult she's not a 13 year old kid. She deal with things her way or the Ranma way. Now is it smart of him to do so? No but that's what make Ranma, well Ranma.

Thank you all for your encouraging reviews and what not and while the few chapters were quick thanks to the effort of my two awesome editors. Next chapter will be slower. Why? It's been a while since I read naruto from start to finish, I only keep up with the latest chapter and so the memory is fuzzy. In my head I know the time line of exactly when Ranma is but now I am missing the details.

So I have to do research by watching the anime and since I only have so much time in a day, it'll be slow going until I get it. If I had the manga then I could burn through it faster but I don't do online reading sites , too much cookies for me to deal with so fug it. Beside who know what fillers from the Naruto Anime I can use now?

Yes I realize there are a lot of question but it is one of those type of fic where the reader discover it with the characters, it's something new. Maddening? Probably but if people having a good time then I don't see why not :) The whole is Ranma going to change back or is she going to go all girl mode. Again the answers have been seeded all over the place throughout five chapters.

_**By request Ranma status Naruto Style :**_

The follow information was added into Konoha's Shinobi force per the Fifth Hokage's orders.

( **_Stats Complied by Tsunade Senju_**) Picture Taken By Shizune Year 13 ANF (After Ninetail Fox)

Ninjutsu : 2

Taijutsu: 4.5

Genjutus: 0.5

Intelligence : 0 (Ouch! Okay! Okay! Lay off Shizune!) 4

Strength : 3

Speed: 4

Stamina: 3

Hand seals : 2

Total points: **23**

What is her current stats now? I might do it again when I show Ranma abilities.

Once again a big thank you for those that left a review for this story :) You guys rock.

As always C+C welcome, Reviews Appreciated.


	6. Chapter 6

Naruto/Ranma

Naruto Belongs to Masashi Kishimoto

Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi

Special thanks to Arcanasage and Azaggthoth, Arcana because he worked on this even with school and the flu bearing down on his ass and Azaggthoth who did the edited and computer crash forcing him to painfully power through it again. Above and beyond there gentlemens. Above and beyond.

**Timeline:** Sometime between Episode 1 of Naruto Shippuden and Episode 400

Once more, Here's Ranma!

****Mind Scape *****

Ranma blinked and found himself back in his mind scape. Looking down, he once more savored the feeling of being a male. For that instant he reveled in his true gender... until he recalled what happened.

"Baka Tsunade..." Ranma grumbled as he surveyed the reconstruction of the Tendo's yard he had found himself in. He had thought that the Slug Sannin was going to forgive him. He had been wrong apparently, the woman had trapped him and dole out her punishment. It wasn't anything he hadn't had before and to be honest he suffered worse from the three baka's back on his home world.

It was then he Ranma saw a sight he couldn't quite believe. There was Herb, in the same girl form that he'd seen her for the past couple of years, doing laundry of all things. Wasn't this all in his mind?

"Oh, Saotome." Herb, with her outfit over layered by one of Kasumi's frilly aprons, greeted the pig-tailed boy. "Back to test your mettle against them again?"

A motion of her head had it pointed to the Dojo that was oddly silent.

"Hah!" The Child Saffron barked a laugh as he made his way up to the trio from the Tendo living room. "You weren't paying attention Lord Herb but Saotome here was punished by his companion just now, hence his consciousness drifted here."

"I had warned you it was a bad idea." Herb-chan said lightly as she took out some clips and aired out some bedsheets to dry. "And now you have put yourself in a most precarious position... if they find out what's inside of you..."

Ranma, however, was still looking at Herb doing laundry that SHOULD have been non-existent. This WAS his mindscape, Right? Maybe Tsunade beat him worse then he thought... speaking of Tsunade, Herb's words registered and he gave Herb an even look.

"I will tell them why I left." Ranma said after recovering from the odd sight. "I owe them that much."

"I still say it's a mistake." Herb stated as she finished hanging all the laundry to dry as a sudden light breeze started to stir in the yard. "These... shinobi are a contemptuous lot. No concept of honor. If they turn on you, do not say I didn't warn you."

"I trust Tsunade." Ranma said firmly, folding his arms as he looked levelly at his two 'guests'. Closing his eyes he forced himself back to consciousness, leaving an empty spot where he had stood.

"I am surprised you did not push harder to not be discovered." Saffron said with a slight tone of surprise in his voice as he sat on the Tendo patio, watching the 'sky'. That was when he saw Herb's confident smirk.

"Saotome is free to tell them anything he wants." Herb said smugly as she grabbed the laundry basket and put it on her side. Then she turned to give Saffron a smirk. " Believing him, however, is a completely different matter. After all, Kaguya's children wouldn't even know where to begin searching."

Saffron looked puzzled before his eyes lit up in understanding. A moment later his smirk matched that of Herb.

***** Konoha *****

Ranma woke up abruptly and, for a moment, thought she was out in the wilderness again only to find herself staring puzzlingly at an unfamiliar ceiling. "Wha?" She thought groggily to herself before recalling what happened.

"Mmmmm... Ranma-chan so fuwah fuwah..."

Darting her eyes immediately to the voice Ranma found herself looking down at the old familiar form of her master, the legendary slug princess, Tsunade Senju. Immediately a tick developed on her head as she remembered exactly what her Sensei's slender yet powerful arms had done to her.

Honestly, she had been willing to take her licks from both from Tsunade AND Shizune when she found them. In fact, she still owed them an explanation, but at least she was now back in familiar territory. If the Slug Sannin had not forgiven her then she would not be in bed with the woman, nor would the woman be holding onto her possessively.

Grinning evilly, Ranma lowered her head down to her Sensei's ear and bellowed her old wake up greeting. "TSUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-CHANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!"

Several things immediately happened that Ranma did not account for. First, Tsunade's grip on her tightened and she was dragged to the ceiling her with her. Second, the room was instantly flooded with masked people looking poised for battle at a moment's notice.

"Hokage-sama! We heard a loud commotion!" A man in a penguin mask said as his eyes darted around, kunai and at the ready to engage possible threats.

Tsunade's eyes darted back and forth before looking at the bundle of red in her arms and shook her head. "At ease, it was just my wayward student. In fact, expect a lot more 'commotions' like that from now on."

"As you say Hokage-sama." The Penguin masked man said never once relaxing before, in a puff of smoke, he and his squad disappeared.

'Body flicker.' Ranma identified immediately before she felt her mentor drop down from the ceiling and place her steadily on her own two feet. It was then that both former master and student were finally reunited a second time. They both examined each other, taking in the changes they may have missed before when emotions were running hotter.

"Hmmm, looks like you got bigger," Ranma observed offhandedly eying Tsunade's breasts, "Kill anyone with those lately?"

"They're the same as ever, your medical skills have obviously eroded over the past couple of years." Tsunade crossed her arms across her chest while taking in the redhead now in a truly awakened state.

"Pfff, I'll have you know my medical skills are just fine." Ranma said defensively. She had kept up with her studies after all. Well, as much as she could. She hadn't ever been interested in becoming a true expert by any means but she could do minor surgical procedures.

"We'll see about that." Tsunade stated then harrumphed as she beckoned for Ranma to follow her out of the room and to the kitchen.

Ranma, after close to three years, was greeted to the sight of Shizune making breakfast with Tonton laying out the plates with her mouth. Clever little pig.

"Ah, Ranma-chan, good morning!" Shizune said cheerfully, her smile beaming as she prepared an elegant spread of food.

"Hey Shizune." Ranma greeted her easily as they all settle down at the breakfast table. The group ate in companionable silence, as if she had not been missing for years. Which was when the battle for breakfast began as Ranma's hand sped out to devour the food and was once against facing the united Tsunade-Shizune alliance to not only beat her assault back but pillage from her own plate. AS if.

It was this scene that Naruto and Sakura walked into, after having been cleared by the Hokage's guard detail. There at the dining table, over a delicious looking meal. was the normally cool Shizune viciously trading blows with the redhead form yesterday while Tsunade was attacking the girl from the other side. Amazingly enough all three sets of hands were blurring, even to their well trained eyes. They could make out that the food was vanishing over the course of the skirmish and the trio were busy munching away while they scuffled.

"Oh hey, think I can get some breakfast too?" Naruto asked, eyes wide. This looked like a fun food fight. As he jaunted happily to the table and reached out for some miso soup.

Sakura jumped when Naruto's body was embedded into the wall right next to her. That was...

"Ow..." Naruto said flatly as he peeled himself from off the wall, shaking his head. He had been quick enough to see what happened, just not quick enough to defend himself from it. The pretty redhead's fist had been the first to hammer into his face, dazing him, followed up by a flick of his Ba-chan's fingers to send him flying off. "Hey!" He shouted indignantly as he rolled up his sleeves and made to get some breakfast.

Sakura jumped again as Naruto's body was now embedded into the wall on the other side of her, this time making a running man pose.

"Grrr!" Naruto said as he peeled himself off the wall. His ba-chan was having fun and no one was letting him in on it? They acted like he wasn't even there! Well he'd show them! "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Immediately the room was flooded with an army of Naruto's, they were even lining up out of the door.

As one the battle over breakfast stopped. Ranma, Tsunade and Shizune watched as the new and sizable army of blond whiskered boys surrounded them on all side. A glance from Ranma to Tsunade, who in turn looked to Shizune, who in then turned to Tonton, who Buhi'ed and bumped her snout against Ranma's leg. The previously warring 'kingdoms', as one, turned to look at the blond intruder. The United Ranma-Tsunada-Shizune faction had now been formed.

Naruto knew he had numerical superiority, yet somehow, the three women in front of him looked pretty intimidating. Even his clones took an involuntary step back and they were supposed to be fodder!

"MEN!" The main Naruto shouted as he turned to face his army of clones. "No mercy! We will get some breakfast! Do not let up, do not stop! To your dying breath! CHARGE!"

"We who are about to die, SALUTE YOU!" The Naruto army yelled as they charged the three women.

++++ After Breakfast ++++

"That was certainly fun, wasn't it Tonton?" Shizune said as she washed the dishes from their breakfast from earlier.

"Buhi!" The pink pig with the necklace nodded happily.

"So mean... not even a single morsel." Naruto muttered dejectedly as he was hugging his knees in a corner of the room. "What am I going to have for breakfast now?"

Ranma and Tsunade were sipping at after meal coffee. Sakura had been seated next to them after the attack of the clones had failed. Hard.

"Ranma-senpai was it?" Sakura ventured out hesitantly, looking at the shorter redhead as the teacher was too busy reading the horse race results from this morning's paper.

"Hmm?" Ranma said surprised before she turned her attention to the pink hair girl. "Senpai?"

"She doesn't know about you Sakura-chan," Shizune explained as she continued to scrub other dishes, "She ran away before we ever got to Konoha."

"I didn't run!" Ranma said defensively. "I had good reason for leaving."

"I'm sorry but a note that just says, 'Have something important to do, be back when I'm finished' does not CUT IT." Shizune said darkly. The dish in her hand cracked in two. "Oops."

Ranma sweated at that. Okay, so it had not been the best note to write. Honestly though, she hadn't thought she'd be gone that long... Looking back to the pink haired girl who was a bit taller than her but flatter as well, she saw the girl was looking at her with something akin to... respect? "So, Sakura was it? What did you learn from the booby monster over here?"

**WHAP!**

"Itee..." Ranma rubbed her head where Tsunade had smacked her with a rolled up newspaper.

"Be grateful brat!" Tsunade snapped with a grin before unrolling the newspaper and flicking it out to read again. "Besides, if you're still claiming to be a guy, then you should have enjoyed all those times you rested between them no?"

"Hey! I am a guy!" Ranma said shot back and then looked between both Tsunade and Shizune. "And I am still holding you to your promise! Both of you!"

"Yeah yeah." Tsunade waved off the girl's retort while Shizune only gave Ranma an indulgent smile. "Those C-cups of yours SCREAM guy. Why that pale skin, those curves and the shape of your body CLEARLY say you're a man!"

Sakura meanwhile was looking at her Senpai oddly. Now, she might have thought Haku was a girl at first but upon further reflection with her new medical knowledge she could tell who was a boy and who was a girl. At least Haku could have passed for a flat chested girl, her Senpai's two jutting breasts were a clear sign of gender. Was her senpai crazy?

Seeing Sakura's look, Tsunade grinned. "Well, all that aside, introduce yourself to your kouhai brat. You're now responsible for her guidance, so set a good example."

Ranma looked over to the pink haired girl who seemed to be giving her a respectful look. That look kind of startled her. Respect? Her? With a grin, she decided she could get use to this. "The name is Ranma Saotome, the greatest martial artist in this world!" She said thumbing her chest.

**WHAP!**

"Taijutsu EXPERT!" Tsunade corrected again as she unrolled the newspaper, again, to continue to see how else she was doing. To her ever growing depression, even 'gispy danger' failed her. Why couldn't she win a bet for once?!

"Hey, a taijutsu expert means they are just good at hand to hand, I am a martial ARTIST!" Ranma shouted back as she rubbed the spot where Tsunade hit her. "Or should I teach you what that means again Tsu-chan?" She said with a grin.

Tsunade's eyes narrowed at the challenge. "You know what? You're on brat, let's go to training ground 75 and I'll determine how much your grown Uzu-HIME." She taunted.

"Uhh... huh?" Sakura questioned at the scene. She'd been about to introduce herself formally, to put herself in her senpai's care but the banter between her Sensei and the girl started up again. Didn't the girl know Tsunade was ninja royalty and that it was disrespectful to address her so crassly?

"Don't worry Sakura, they're always like this." Shizune explained to the puzzled girl, patting her shoulder reassuringly. "Honestly it's really therapeutic for Tsunade-sama to vent like this and it's better than the alternative, which is her drinking."

Sakura watched as the redhead pressed her head against Tsunade's own, repeating the challenge of the legendary Sannin to a duel.

"Lead on Tsu-chan!" Ranma growled.

"Follow me if you can, brat!" Tsunade said before she stood up and body flickered away.

Ranma blinked then narrowed her eyes. "Baka!" She growled as she jumped out the window and speed off, tracking Tsunade's chakra signature. Unfortunately body flicker was one of those moves she still had a hard time using due to how much chakra she needed and what she had to do to use it.

Naruto had slowly come out of his funk to notice that the redhead was talking to his Ba-chan like he did. He decided to follow right away, interested in seeing this fight. Shizune touched Sakura's shoulder and a moment later the two were body flickered right to training ground 75. Looking around, it seemed like it was just an open patch of ground with lots of sand and a pond a little distance away.

Tsunade was already at the field waiting for her other student and felt the girl closing in on her quickly. Moments later she saw the redhead jump down in front of her followed by a team of Anbu who were hot on her heels. Rising her hand up, Tsunade let the Anbu know it was okay.

Ranma had ignored the Shinobi that were following her after she'd realized that her teacher was not only testing her speed but also her evasion ability. She noted that the woman who had bought Dango off of her was also hot on her heels, along with a familiar looking purple haired woman with a Katana strapped to her back. The rest of the crowd was comprised of animal masked people.

"That's my student, she's a Konoha Genin." Tsunade announced to the Shinobi and was pleased on two fronts. The first being the quick reaction time of the Anbu and the other is Ranma's inability to get caught. She was not, however, pleased with Ranma's inability to body flicker. She would have thought the girl had learned it by now.

"As you say Hokage-sama." The slightly winded Anbu squad nodded and broke apart, going back to their posts. She could already feel her personal guard had body flickered with her a moment she'd done so.

"This girl is your student Hokage-sama?" Anko asked, surprised to see the same redhead from the day before. She then realized the girl had expertly deceived her with her 'wide eyed country bumpkin' tourist routine. She didn't know whether to feel appalled at being suckered or begrudging admiration. While she hated the snake bastard he had taught her well and noticing subtle hints of deception was at the top of her skill set list. Undecided, she came up with a compromise, it was all the Dango's fault. They distracted her... yes, that was it.

Yugao Uzuki, however, was of a different mindset. The girl was an unknown and was jumping across Konoha, pursued by Anbu. She could have left them to catch her but it was that vibrant shade of red had reminded her of a certain young girl that she had failed in protecting. The Third Hokage had absolved her and Dog of their responsibility, after all they were facing one of the famous swordsmen of the mist, but personally she had felt attached to the little girl. She'd felt bad at not being able to track down any other signs of her when they came back later. With Konoha's resources limited, the Hokage had ended the search after a week. However, since then Yugao had kept an eye out for any red haired girls just in case.

"Still can't body flicker yet I see..." Tsunade 'hmm'ed as she walked around Ranma, assessing her. "Although you don't look winded in the slightest, which is good. Stamina has improved and from this morning, reflexes along with speed."

"Oi, what's going on Shizune-san?" Anko asked as she walked up to the head of Konoha's medic-nin corp as she saw Tsunade assessing the girl. If she was a student shouldn't the Fifth know the redhead's ability already?

Sakura tried to nondescriptly eavesdrop while keeping her attention on her teacher and her other Senpai, who was nodding at Tsunade's critique.

"That's Tsunade-sama's student, she has... been on a trip and just recently got back in town." Shizune said easily. "It's been a while so now Tsunade-sama is going to assess her skills."

That peaked Anko's interest. She'd seen the Haruno girl's improvement under the Sannin. Turning around she saw one of her few friends, Yugao Uzuki, had also remained behind and was scrutinizing the redhead. Anko shook her head softly, the girl had never gotten over her failure to escort that Uzu survivor to Konoha and one of her little quirks was to scrutinizing every red haired little girl she came across as the years passed.

"Hmmm, alright then. Use chakra based skills only. I want to see how well your abilities developed." Tsunade ordered as she jumped back easily. She shrugged off her official 'Hokage' robe to fling it to Shizune, who caught it easily.

Ranma nodded and started her hand signs quickly before slamming her hand into the ground. She watched as the ground beneath Tsunade opened up and grabbed Tsunade in powerful hold.

Tsunade just rolled her eyes and gave Ranma a flat look. "You pulled this crap two years a - whoa!" She was interrupted by the need to duck her head as stone spears formed from the ground and threatened to skewer her head. Looking back at the redhead, she saw the little girl was smirking.

"You were saying Tsu-chan?" Ranma said raising an eye brow as she dusted her hands.

"Not a bad start brat. I guess I should use a bit more of my strength." With an easy flex of her muscles and a grin, Tsunade broke free from the earth prison, impressing their audience.

"Waiiiitttt I wanna seeee!" Naruto shouted as he finally arrived. He wasn't alone, as Tenten and Rock Lee were with him.

"Yosh! Hokage-sama! I heard you were battling one of your students with the Will of Fire!" Rock Lee called out respectfully. "It can only help me better myself to see Hokage-sama in action!"

Tenten just shook her head at Lee's antics. But then, to get to see the legendary Slug Princess in action? Why, it was something that couldn't be missed.

"You sure you want this many people here to see me beat your ass into the ground?" Ranma asked cockily, surprising some of the youngsters and interesting the two older women.

"I dunno, let's see if you still have that immunity." Tsunade said before quickly running trough a hand sign pattern and then finished off with by clapping her hands together.

Everyone saw the redhead freeze for a split second before shaking her head. "Yep, same ole same ole." Ranma drawled as she felt Tsunade's Genjutsu attack try to take hold of her mind. Once again Suzaku burned it away instantly. To the phoenix beast, it was an affront to try and twist their mind with chakra.

"Well now that I know you still have that, I guess I'll see how far you've come!" Tsunade called easily before throwing out a barrage of shuriken aimed to strike all of Ranma's vital points.

Yugao and Anko's eyes narrowed as they saw the kawamari performed a split second before the swarm of projectiles hit the girl.

Tsunade instantly turned around and made to clothesline the redhead, only to be stopped by the girl's own chakra enhanced strength before being pushed away. It was a split second later when Tsunade saw her long lost student quickly flow into another set of hand seals.

"Hydra no Jutsu!" Ranma yelled after flashing trough twelve consecutive signs then watched as a giant flame serpent coiled from the palm of her hand and charged toward her teacher.

Shaking her head at another familiar attack, Tsunade cocked her head back and punched the fire dragon's snout, making it explode and fall limply. "Have to do better than that bra-huh?" She turned around and saw the dragon... now sporting two heads instead of the one she'd just smashed in. Still, two heads didn't matter. She jumped up at the fire serpent and destroyed the left head with the back of her hand and the right had with a kick from her feet.

Ranma, in the meantime, had seen a little spring lake nearby and ran to it quickly as Tsunade was distracted by her little jutsu trick.

Sakura was looking in admiration as the serpent's two heads turned into a four, then as her mentor destroyed the four heads they turned into eight.

Anko had to smile at that. A unique way to use the attack while making sure the jutsu was not a throw away with one stroke. However, she was all but certain the cost was pretty high to begin with to perform that trick.

Tsunade was grinning as she was now facing off against sixteen flaming dragon heads that were each snapping at her as quick as a cobra. Interesting as it was however, that appeared to be the limit of that technique. From then, every head she had destroyed was now permanently gone. No more splitting.

Reaching into her Chakra store, Ranma used yet another massive chunk and stood in the water as she did a long and complex series of hand signs while Tsunade was moving to finish off her hydra. Finishing the series, she smashed her hand into the water.

The moment Tsunade finished off Ranma's multi-headed snake was the moment she saw a dragon made of ice. This one came slithering at her, with Ranma standing on top of it's head. It kind of reminded her of an ice version of Manda as it reared it's head back to chomp down on her. With a smirk of her own, she did her own hand sign and called upon a massive fire ball to launch at ice dragon.

"Gotcha!" Ranma yelled from on top of the dragon's head and blazed trough a complex series of hand signs, even as the fireball closed in on her dragon courtesy of Tsunade. She jumped off her ride, even as the fiery attack smashed into it, and watched as science took over. With a manic grin she use the last of her chakra stores and clapped her hands together as mini storm started to rain down on Tsunade from the melted ice.

Tsunade was smirking when she felt a little pricking sensation on her arms. Looking down she saw there was a thin stab mark on her arms, not unlike a small senbon needle. Next was a stinging sensation on her head, then on her face. It was when a single droplet of the water passed her vision that she noticed the difference. Instead of the oval pear shape, the water drop looked like a sharp needle. Reacting quickly Tsunade did a quick hand sign and smashed the ground with it, creating a small earthen bunker over her head to wait out the rest of the needle rain.

Multiple sounds of something heavy could be heard striking Tsunade's dirt shield while Anko and Yugao whistled in appreciation. The torrent of sharp needle strikes pinged on top of the Hokage's dirt shield. That was a pretty complex maneuver but deadly. Anko was already thinking of ways such a technique could be used for silent assassination when it's raining and people were not suspecting the very water that was falling on them could kill them.

There were water attacks to be sure but that finely tuned by a Genin?

"Annnd I'm out!" Ranma chirped cheerfully as she dusted her hands together. She watched as the chakra infused rain drops ran out of energy and returned back to their natural shapes. The technique was only good for a few seconds at the most. It was, after all, only designed to turn people into switch cheese.

Apparently Ranma's comment made Sakura's jaw drop. While her technique was powerful, Ranma's endurance and reserves appeared to be miniscule. And this was supposed to be her Senpai?

Tsunade walked out from her cover and nodded in approval. Already the cuts on her cheek and arms were healed thanks to her natural ability. "Impressive, you expanded on what you worked before and made it deadlier. A-rank in terms of lethality at most, especially that last one."

"Didn't I tell you? I'm the best!" Ranma declared, puffing her chest out not and knowing that she made Sakura feel self-conscience by the display.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. But your chakra reserves are almost at the same level as when you left. Have you not been practicing?" Tsunade asked with demanding eyes.

Ranma began to fidget on the spot and loosened the collar around her neck. "Well... umm, you know, that's cause... the, umm, reason why I kinda had to go... yeah." She said uncomfortably.

Tsunade, however, did not look pleased.

"Look, lemme show you something I learned. You're gonna love this!" Ranma said quickly trying to appease her mentor and friend. Clearing her throat and raising her hand she smirked, they're gonna be so surprised. "Kasai Koramu!"

A moment of silence later, where absolutely nothing happened, had Tsunade glaring flatly at her. "And what was that supposed to do exactly?"

"Eh?" Ranma blinked in surprise, looking up at her hand where a column of fire was supposed to pour forth like water. Closing her eyes, she found herself in front of her mindscape's version of the Tendo Dojo.

"Hey, what's going on here?!" Ranma demanded as he barged into the Dojo. The two god beasts were sitting in meditative poses, for once not fighting. That made the pig tail boy do a double take.

Suzaku and Seiryuu opened their eyes and looked at the pig tailed boy's interruption.

"It is best not to cause too much of a commotion right now, we are beset by enemies on all sides." Seiryuu said in her soft deadly tone of voice.

Suzaku nodded at Seiryuu's explanation.

"You," Ranma said pointing to the phoenix god, "Didn't you say I could use those fire attacks because I earned them?"

Suzaku gave Ranma a flat glare. "Yes I did and you can use them. When you are in actual combat. My awe inspiring might is not something for you to show off as if some parlor trick." He stated imperiously. His distaste for Ranma plain in his voice.

Giving Suzaku the middle finger, Ranma looked at Seiryuu who nodded in agreement with Suzaku's assessment. "Pricks." Ranma declared as he closed the door to the Dojo and barred the entrance once more with the Gekkaja and Kinjakan.

Closing his eyes, he opened it again to a changed view of Tsunade looking at her expectantly. "Ah shit, it's pretty cool when I get the chance to show you." Ranma said lamely before perking up. "Now can I use the rest of my real abilities?"

Sakura perked up at hearing the girl's declaration. Tenten had not been impressed by Tsunade's other disciple but Lee actually thought her attacks were pretty interesting, despite her small reserves.

"So the girl, instead of spacing out her chakra decided to use it for a few high level attacks instead?" Anko asked Shizune, who nodded.

"It appeared to work best that way for Ranma-chan, you'll see why in a minute." Shizune hinted as she saw the redhead looking at their teacher.

"Fine, fine. Let's see how far your Taijutsu skills have developed." Tsunade allowed, as she suddenly adopted a serious expression, surprising everyone present aside from Shizune.

Lee perked up at the word taijutsu along with Naruto.

'That girl must be crazy if she thinks she can take Baa-chan in a taijutsu fight, ain't that right fox?' Naruto though to his oddly silent passenger. Naruto remembered Tsunade's taijutsu skill was no laughing matter, partly from having been on the receiving end of several of her attacks. Still it was odd that the kyuubi, which had been talking to him, had suddenly gone silent the exact moment the redhead closed her eyes. 'Yoooo hooo Fox~~~~?'

Within the seals on Naruto's stomach and behind a cage's bars, the Nine Tailed Fox had gone silent yet it shifted uneasily in it's prison. It had felt a spike of energy just now. Different. Wrong. Whatever it was, it made him want to go on a violent rampage and snuff it out. He would need more information on what was going on and so for now, he'd stay quiet and observe the situation.

"Well then Tsu-chan." Ranma began to taunt as she started to stalk around her Sensei like a tiger going on a hunt. Though she would never compare herself to such a monster. "Let's see if you've gotten any slower in your dodding old age."

"Bring it on runt." Tsunade returned and saw Ranma shoot her a dirty look. Poor girl was still short, although a bit top heavy these days.

Anko and Yugao, who had been relaxed as they had watched the master and student circle one another, suddenly came to attention as the girl rushed the Hokage.

"Whoa..." Tenten gasped as she watched the redhead... dance, it almost seemed like, into Tsunade's blunt and hard hitting attacks. Deflecting blows here while countering there, the girl was graceful and fluid in all of her movements.

Sakura who had thus far decided only to afford minimal 'proper' respect to her lack luster senpai, found herself having to reevaluate that opinion. Especially seeing as the girl had just effortlessly deflected one of Tsunade's bone shattering punches and was forcing the Hokage to use ever more complex ninjutsu and taijutsu combinations.

Rock Lee could fully appreciate the taijutsu of the redhead. Taijutsu experts like himself did not tend to worry over much about beauty but more about the effectiveness of attacks to bring their opponents down. Whatever was the best way to get the job done. Granted, grace developed in their movements to be sure but usually as a side benefit. Nothing like the fluidity this girl was showing. 'Gai-sensei! I need to learn how to move like her and if I can't do it it will do 1000 squats with both hand tied behind my back !' He mentally promised himself as his eyes were glued to the match.

Naruto, had he never went on his journey with Jiraiya, would have just thought the girl was running away from his Ba-chan. Now, with better eyes for taijutsu, he marveled at the way the girl simply ducked, weaved and flowed around his Baa-chan's attack before giving his Baa-chan skull ringing hits. How did he know it was skull ringing? He could actually feel the heavy impacts trough the ground from fists smashing into hardened flesh from where he stood.

Ranma knew that Tsunade hated when he switched styles in the middle of a fight, which was great as far as she was concerned. An irritated Tsunade meant a sloppy Tsunade after all. Akido, karate, kempo, kung fu, wu shu and taijutsu(the types that were taught to her at least) had all been woven into her skill set like an artist putting together a tapestry. However like any artist, their work would never good enough and they always seek to improve themselves. Now it was time to show Tsunade that she too had improved greatly.

Tsunade found herself having to really focus to try hit the girl, something that was usually instinctive to her. Yet Ranma's ability to evade and slippery style seemed to be using her instincts against her somehow. She had found so far that for every one hit she landed on her protégée, the redhead tagged her with five. While her constitution was good she could only take so many blows before she would need to start diverting her chakra from offense and defense to heal the damage. That, unfortunately, would be that.

Smirking at her Sensei's attempt to compensate for her aggressive but quick taijutsu moves, Ranma hooked her arm around her Sensei's overextended punch. Planting her feet firmly she outright stole the attack's momentum, converting it into perfect judo throw and planting the Hokage face first into the dirt.

Deciding it was a perfect time to follow up, she pulled her hands back and thrust them forward in tandem as she launched her ki attack. "Moko Takabisha Double Shot!" Ranma shouted as twin orbs of Ki impacted the startled slug sannin, sending her reeling for a second before the woman recovered.

"Two shots this time but you have to do better than that brat!" Tsunade said as she did a quick hand sign and let loose with dozen razor sharp flying explosive tags. These were some of her own work and packed a much higher yield of force than was normally found in such things.

"Need to do better than that Tsu-chan!" Ranma taunted after evading the explosions, only to have her eyes widen upon realizing Tsunade was no longer in front of her. "Crap!"

Tsunade body flickered to the redhead after capitalizing on the cover the explosions had created for her. "Ha!" She shouted as her hand, charged with electricity to overload her student's nervous system, shot down only for her protégée to block the attack with her forearm at the last second.

Gritting her teeth from the electrical current running through her body, Ranma had her Ki work to counter the damage as it was being done to her. Still, she pushed back against her teacher's great strength with her own Ki enhanced muscles.

Something occurred to Sakura as she watched her Sensei apply more pressure to her Senpai's forearm. Having trained first hand with the Hokage she knew how strong the woman was. Yet her Senpai was resisting, quite vigorously judging by how her feet were digging into the ground where she stood. Which should not be possible. Wasn't the girl out of chakra? Was she using... Sakura touched her forehead to be sure but she did not see any diamond shaped seal appear on her Senpai's head. So where was she getting all of this energy from?

Tsunade grinned at Ranma, who returned a cocky smirk of her own. As the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village pushed down on the redhead with one arm she realized she'd need to shake up this little battle of wills. She lashed out with her other arm, aiming for the girl's gut. To her surprise, Ranma's free hand blocked the incoming attack by grabbing her incoming fist to blunt it's momentum. Tsunade could almost admit to being impressed.

Yet Ranma, being Ranma, saw the shift as an opening to exploit. She changed her stance, allowing Tsunade to 'over power' her while using the other attack point as a fulcrum. Bleeding the attack for all it was worth and pivoting with Tsunade's help, Ranma flowed into a handstand. Angled properly and with her Sensei left open, she drove both of her feet into Tsunade's face. Had it just been one kick it might not have fazed the slug princess but Ranma poured in several hundred kicks during the fraction of a second she had open and that sent the Hokage flying.

Tsunade recovered almost instantly from the attack and drew a kunai from her pouch, ready to engage her student in a ninja fist fight. She was pleased to see Ranma had done the same and was about to charge when she felt several Anbu guards headed her way. To Ranma's credit, she noted, the girl sensed them as well and pulled to an abrupt stop.

In a flash of a swirl of leaves, a masked Anbu arrived and whispered something into the Hokage's ear. It was obviously bad news considering the way her expression grew grave.

Ranma, reading the mood, put her kunai away. She then took her Konoha headband from her pouch and tied it loosely around her neck, not knowing that certain milky eyed girl also wore it in the same style.

"Have Ibiki confirm the information and bring me the report." The moment Tsunade finished the order the Anbu nodded affirmatively and then body flickered away.

"Trouble?" Ranma asked seeing the expression on Tsunade's face. At that moment she was struck by the sudden realization that her Sensei was actually really responsible enough to be Hokage. For some reason it made her proud, like seeing one's child grow up.

Tsunade narrowed her eyes at the pleased look on Ranma's face, mainly because she had a feeling the girl was thinking of something disparaging about her. She couldn't prove it but all those years with the Uzu survivor had given her a sixth sense for those types of things.

"Nothing you need concern yourself with but more importantly, now that I have confirmed that you weren't completely slacking off, you owe me and Shizune an explanation." Tsunade said as she walked up to the redhead.

"Right..." Ranma said while eying the people around them. She had learned more about Jinchuriki during her journey, both the ones in this world and what Herb had told her. "Can we talk in private?" She asked as she looked at Tsunade and Shizune.

With a wave of her hand, Tsunade sent the Anbu guards further away and dismissed both Anko and Yugao from their presence. A look from Shizune had Anko drag the kids with her, much to their chagrin and her amusement.

Doing a quick hand sign with Tsunade once everyone was out of the immediate area and there was no spot for anyone to hide, they looked at the redhead and awaited her explanation. While her home and offices always had ears, whether it be from Root or her own people, out here in the open flat area it was actually harder to eavesdrop without being spotted.

"Well?" Tsunade said crossing her arms across her impressive bust size.

Ranma looked at both his mentor AND Shizune's expectant looks and braced herself for their reaction. "So you know how I had to leave because I said I had something important to do?" She started while fidgeting nervously.

"Yes." Shizune was the one that replied with a dark look. The little girl leaving had hurt her a lot.

Gulping Ranma held up her hand in surrender. "Turns out... I am, what is known in this land, as a Jinchuriki." She dropped the bomb.

Shizune and Tsunade both had stunned looks on their faces. Tsunade in particular was scrutinizing the redhead looking at her from head to toe. She did not disbelieve the redhead. On the contrary, that would be in line with what she knew of the Uzumaki clansman. Still, all these years and she had never suspected that maybe her charge was carrying a tailed beast inside of her? How disgraceful was that? She knew she wasn't as good as Jiraiya in the sealing arts but she wasn't average either.

"Can you show me your seal?" Tsunade asked seriously, wanting to take a look at the Uzumaki clansman's handy work. This would change everything and maybe Naruto, brat that he was, could have someone that would understand what he was going through.

Shizune was looking at girl in silent respect. She could not even imagine the horror of carrying a tailed beast inside of herself. Although Naruto appeared to be doing well.

"Seal?" Ranma asked, puzzled.

"The seal of your tailed beast, where is it? Stomach? Chest? Back?" Tsunade listed the possible places the seal could be applied.

"Uhhh, what seal?" Ranma asked curiously and was taken aback by both the serious expressions on Tsunade and Shizune face.

Narrowing her eyes she looked at Ranma. "Take off your shirt." Tsunade demanded.

"What?!" Ranma shouted in shock. "No way!"

"Apparently you do not know where your seal is, that could be dangerous. Take off your shirt, I need to look." Tsunade ordered in a serious tone of voice, making Ranma halt her protest before sighing.

Taking off her red shirt, which sported a similar design as Tsunade's, Ranma stood exposed for them to see.

"Hmmm," Tsunade mused as her hand touched the girl's stomach and sent a pulse of chakra into her to light the seals up. Frowning she went all over the girl's upper body, sending out little chakra pulses to look for the seals and still saw nothing that would look like any beast seals. On the other hand, the girl's porcelain white skin was starting to make Tsunade envious.

"Ughh... What are you guys doing?" Ranma asked as she felt those little chakra pulse enter her body. The invading energy gave her an icky feeling.

"The pants Shizune," Tsunade said, in full examination mode now. And as Shizune was in full assistant mode, she complied.

Before Ranma could react her pants were around her ankles and her bottom half was in full view. Blushing beet red she glared at her two former traveling companions. Her face got even redder when Tsunade's hand cupped her ass and sent a chakra pulse through that region of her body. "HEY, CUT IT OUT!" She screamed indignantly as she pulled her pants back up and tossed her shirt back on.

Tsunade, startled at the protest, looked at Ranma then looked at Shizune before looking back at the blushing girl. "Okay now, seriously what have you been up to for the past few years." Tsunade said in a flat tone of voice.

"Huh?" Ranma asked, confused. She noticed Shizune also had a displeased look. "I just told you."

"Jinchuriki have seals that become visible when distressed or flooded with charka." Tsunade explained with a half lidded stare. "You don't have one and I sense nothing."

"Uhh..." Ranma said intelligently as she tried to think of why they couldn't detect her seals. She was almost positive she had them. Then a thought occurred to her. "Maybe it's because they weren't made with Chakra seals?"

"All beasts, tailed or otherwise have chakra in them," Tsunade explained in her teaching tone as she eyed her little red headed companion of some years. "If you do not have any chakra seals, then you do not have a beast in you."

Shizune, next to Tsunade, nodded in agreement. What she knew as Chakra beasts, or tailed beast as they were called, were malevolent in general.

"Ummm, I don't think I have a tailed beast." Ranma explained and saw her two friends looked at her skeptically. "Well I mean they DO have tails just not right now with how I got them trapped."

Tsunade once again tried to use her Chakra senses to detect anything from the smaller red head but came up once again with nothing. The girl seemed convinced she had something sealed in her, yet in all that time traveling she had not exhibited any known traits of a Jinchuriki or any of their benefits. If anything she was bottom of the ladder, as far as Tsunade was concerned, when she first started out.

A brief ludicrous thought occurred to the Slug Princess, the girl did have a high affinity for spiritually based attacks and skills. She called it ki or chi, some crap like that. Maybe, just maybe, it was molded using that energy? However, as quickly as the thought occurred to her, Tsunade dismissed it. Everyone knew, for as long as she had lived, without physical energy to mix with the spiritual side there was no way in hell anyone could mold anything. It simply was not possible.

"Fine, fine. We believe you." Tsunade said making Ranma smile while looking at Shizune and giving a short curt shake of her head that the redhead missed. She'd let Jiraiya examine the girl and if he came up with nothing then... well, she would deal with it if things came to it. As it stood now, the little red head that she sorely missed had returned and appeared to be even stronger then before. "So anything else beside the... tailed beast?"

Ranma cupped her hand to her chin and appeared to be interally debating something before she shrugged. "Well I was finally able to learn a couple of more of my special family style techniques. Quite deadly too." She bragged a bit.

"Oh? And what are these techniques?" Shizune asked curiously. She had been scared when Ranma mentioned the tailed beast but was relieved as Tsunade examination came up negative.

"You see that tree over there?" Ranma said pointing at a fairly ancient tree towering in the distance.

"Yes." Tsunade said with a nod. Then Ranma said 'Raishu' something under her breath and, with a flick of her arm, launched a nearly invisible air current attack. The ripple in the air sliced not only through the thick tree but several more trees behind it so cleanly they may as well not have been in the way. That was a deadly wind attack and she hadn't used chakra to produce it.

Even Shizune was kind of taken aback by the technique. If Ranma had even so much as fired that off wrong then any of them could have been suddenly amputated. Everyone knew wind attacks were the trickiest of all the elements.

"Impressive," Tsunade said honestly. The uses for that and with that distance... if Ranma could refine it, she would be even deadlier. She saw Ranma fidgeting in place, not knowing the verdict of where they stood now that they had for all intents and purposes aired out their grievances. She'd already taken her pound of flesh from the redhead and so could now focus on integrating her to keep her close by. Besides, she missed the annoying little pain in the ass. "As of right now you will be an active Konoha Genin."

"Really?" Ranma started a bit, surprised that they had accept her explanation of her missing years even as she processed Tsunade's statement. While she herself held no loyalty to Konoha she did feel attachment to Tsunade who was, unbelievably to her, the leader of this city. She was not going to call it a village, because no village was this big. So while she might be working for Konoha in name, she really would be working for Tsunade. "Gotcha."

"Good, I'll determine where to put you soon. No Chunin test, yet, but any Genin squad would be carried by you and not get experience. Add to the fact your other special... abilities." Tsunade pondered the problem with a frown, furrowing her eyebrows as if in deep thoughts.

"Well, team 7 is missing a person..." Shizune interjected into Tsunade's thoughts.

"Yeah but that damn Danzo's been pushing for one of his own to be assigned to the squad, citing trust issues when it comes to apprehending Sasuke. The council agreed with him." Tsunade muttered, not even trying to hide her distaste at the politicking that was going on.

"Who says it has to be only three?" Shizune prompted, once more looking at her mentor.

"Hmmm," Tsunade 'hmm'ed, tapping her cheek before turning to the redhead. "Well brat, I have Hokage stuff to do but I can't do it looking dirty. You can follow Shizune around after we get cleaned up."

"Right." Ranma said as she looked down at her battered clothes. "Where will I be staying?"

Tsunade and Shizune gave the redhead a look that just screamed that she must be stupid if she hadn't figured it out.

"Ah right... heh heh. I knew that." Ranma muttered bashfully. She hadn't known if she'd still be that welcome but her heart warmed that she was. It made her feel like she belonged, which was a feeling she'd missed.

"Alright then, let's go to the public women's bath!" Tsunade cheered as she held Ranma's shoulder and pulled her along.

"Huh? No, wait! Not again!" Ranma protested immediately but was still dragged along by the great strength of the blond.

TBC...

AN: So This chapter turned out to be a lot longer then I wanted it to be O+O, you can thank my editors for asking me to flesh out certain things making it longer :D I find that I don't need to describe everything in heavy detail but just give enough info so that you yourself could fill in the blank. For those that is not enjoying the story, well , that is unfortunate. For those that are, awesome!

I also didn't realize from the comments from some of the reviewers that the whole bone crushing spine breaking punishment was that big of a deal. I was mimicking the violent comedy from Ranma and Naruto for fun. I didn't realize that it might have seem overly excessive even by my editor standards. I still don't but I guess I'll try and tone it down a bit and see how it goes.

AS for what is going on in this chapter, well it's just the beginning of how Ranma affect Naruto as with how Naruto world changed Ranma and of course further the mystery. Again, feel free to speculate, Already I have received lots of assumptions via PM or reviews and they seem to make up their own mind where things are gonna go, such is the drawback of writing a mystery fic, for those that are sticking with it, thanks :D

I am trying for the whole Kishimoto feel with seeding crap early in the series and then coming back to it to linking it up :D Take for instance the newly introduce Reverse Harem not Jutsu by Nartuo in the latest chapters. As for the attack Ranma used, I seen some weird crazy jutsu from Naruto and ran it through several editors and beta readers, those moves that Ranma do is plausible according to them. So I am gonna run with it :D

As for what is going on inside Ranma mind scape with Herb, feel free to speculate :D

Now to clear up a misconception, the stats that i posted in the last chapter was pre- time skip. Tsunade put it in the books as a registered Nin of Konoha , people assume that was Ranma current status. That is not. This is Ranma current Status.

_**Ranma status Naruto Style : Updated in Konoha rosters  
**_

_********__(Stats Complied by Tsunade Senju Fifth Hokage of Konoha_) Picture Taken By Shizune Year 15 ANF (After Ninetail Fox)

Name: Ranma Saotome

Possible Affiliation: Whirlpool village

Age: 15

Ninjutsu : 2.5

Taijutsu: 5

Genjutus: 0.5

Intelligence : TBD

Strength : 4

Speed: 4

Stamina: 4

Hand seals : 2

Total points: **22 **

And that's Ranma current Status :D Intelligence is such a subjective word. Are we talking about combat intelligence? Emotional intelligence? Rationale intelligence? The number assigned to that stats is so sporadic for every single Konaha shinobi that doesn't fit in with their archetype at all. So for Tsunade it's TBD for now as Ranma could be great one moment and dumb ass the next.

Thanks for all those who left a review :D

As always C+C welcome Reviews Appreciated.


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